The Dust of Time
by Mizzy
Summary: Will struggles with his conscience, while struggling with the Darkest threat he’s come up against so far - his own family’s memories. Will/Bran Slash.
1. No Harm, No Foul

_Title_: **The Dust of Time **

_Rating: _PG-13. 

_Author: _Mizzy (mizzy_2k@yahoo.co.uk or castle_ebgb@yahoo.co.uk) 

_Summary: _Will struggles with his conscience, while struggling with the Darkest threat he's come up against so far - his own family's memories. Will/Bran Slash. 

_Disclaimer: _"The Dark is Rising Sequence" does not belong to me, it belongs to Susan Cooper, the amazing Goddess that she is. This is written by a fan, for the fans, and no money has exchanged hands what-so-ever. 

_Author's Notes_: There've been a few alterations in this chapter, not the least my slip in naming Barney as a Stanton. What can I say, except _wishful thinking_!

Although the Dark is Rising sequence is, from its language and social content, meant to be set in the decade it was written, I've taken great liberties to pull the storyline to a closer decade. I personally think the sequence could be set any time, so in this storyline, "The Dark is Rising" occurred 1995. Thanks to _Robert _for the beta'ing. 

----- 

_And here they come, these comrades mine _

_Laughing, happy, brave to see _

_Untarnished by the dust of time _

_Forever fresh in memory._

The Long Patrol, Brian Jacques 

---------- 

[Part One] - "No harm, no foul." 

---------- 

December 20th 2003 

---------- 

Will drew his legs up to his chest, and squeezed his arms around them as he leant his head against his knees. He had a good view of the countryside from the window seat in the living room, and last year he'd spent a long time sat on the same seat; watching the world go by from his stationary point. 

Last year would have probably been a very peculiar experience for the Will Stanton who went to sleep on the night of his eleventh birthday. The only family left in the large Stanton home had been Will, and his parents. Every one of Will's brothers and sisters had flown the nest, leaving him to study for his A-levels on his own. It was probably a blessing, considering with the lessened number of disturbances he managed to get through the two years of sixth form with two A's, a B and a C at AS-Level. 

University life had been a breath of fresh air for Will. The freedom to choose your own study time and meet your friends, and just _live_, was more than Will had experienced at home. It wasn't a particular new experience, but it was a pleasant one. Especially when he considered the company… 

When Will had turned up at the Fresher's Week Fair, he'd been startled to notice a flash of white brush past his sight, and then again to notice a familiar ponytail move briskly by. He'd walked around the hall in a bit of a daze after that, slightly winded and wondering how he could ever face them again. They wouldn't remember what had happened, not a bit, while he still had the burden of the knowledge of what had taken place; of their true identities and true skills.

However, when they did actually meet, a brief collision by the anthropology stand, the meeting was warm and relaxed Will's fears by an impossible amount. Jane hadn't changed much, her cheekbones maybe a bit more pronounced and eyes darker, but her mien was the same and she greeted him with a cheerful smile; claiming he hadn't changed a bit since that mundanely boring holiday six years ago. Will had offered her a weak greeting in return, with a shrug, and Jane had seemed genuinely pleased to see a face she recognised in the mass of writhing bodies and foreign faces. Will had encouraged himself to actually speak to Jane, enough to find out she was taking Anthropology and Simon was doing Ecology at Lancaster, when a timid hand on his shoulder made him jump. He'd swivelled round to see golden-coloured eyes warmly trained on his own, and, surprising even himself, he'd grabbed Bran Davies in a winding hug in the middle of the crowded hall. Jane had raised her eyebrows a bit at the sight of the albino boy, his arms covered by a long checked shirt and baggy trousers that fell half-way down his trainers, but that had been her only indication she'd noticed Bran's 'differences.' 

Will had instantly pulled back from the hug, flushing a little and greeting Bran with a grin. Bran chided Will for the less-than-frequent communiqués, but they soon settled into an easy going rapport, with Jane being a seemingly steadying force of the trio. All three lived in the same, scummy, student accommodation, and as all three were doing the same subject the time had almost breezed by. 

The memories of the last ten weeks tightened in Will's chest, and he leant his head against the cool surface of the window, and watched the world spin on by a little more. 

There had been a few inane comments directed at their compact triad, and were soon stopped by Will's ever-encompassing presence, but none of them compared with the grief Will carried around with him; sometimes making him look physically fatigued, other times just weighing down his spirit. He'd grasped onto the welcoming friendship offered from the naturally friendly spirits of Jane and Bran, but deeply resented the ties as well as desperately needing them. Seeing them every day, at lectures, or just in the park as they chattered amicably about their families, or normal life, and seeing them bright and unburdened relieved Will, as well as churning his insides. 

His relief was great that they didn't feel the overwhelming loneliness of his position, of the lone Old One left to guard and watch and wait until the Dark showed signs of returning. His despair almost soared to match it, that they lived on, oblivious to their own heritage, to their own power, to their own _memories_… 

Will stiffened again at the thought that they'd been withheld from the truth, and it was obviously what was needed; for the world, for their sanity and for their well-being. He had no right to tell them the truth. He had no right to let them in on the pain he carried around with him like an anchor around his neck. He knew how painful it was, and had no desire for them to feel that overwhelming wave of isolation. 

And so he kept his solitary watch, the lonely guardian; timeless, like those standing stones at Trewissick, and Will couldn't help but wonder if he - like the stones - would stand the test of time, or if the constant battering of anguish and solitude would wear him down, like the sea crumbling him a little every day. 

_The Dark attacks from the sea_, _after all…_

The memory of battles from a time he shouldn't have been able to remember crashed in the background of his memories, and he lifted his head; leaning his head against the coldness of the glass and continued watching. 

Time seemed so slow now. People said that time speeded up as you got older, what was that old rhyme? "When as a child I laughed and wept, Time Crept, when as a youth I waxed more bold, Time Strolled, when I became full grown man, Time Ran…" Blinking, Will tried to recall the rest of the rhyme, inscribed for eternity in an English Cathedral; an eternity, Will thought with a strong sense of bitterness he'd almost forgotten he could feel, that may someday end, while he… He would surpass everything, everyone, as he mirrored the watch his master had begun in the dawn of humanity.  
  
Sometimes he could forget. Only part of him was the part allied with the magic of the Light; the rest of Will Stanton was a bright, sociable teenager, fascinated with history and an avid worker. A teenager who was back at his childhood home, the first of the Stanton children to return and who was waiting at the same spot, pensively, on his own. 

Thinking of his brothers and sisters made Will abruptly move his gaze from the window, and he relaxed his position on the window seat to lightly rise to his feet. Padding to the kitchen, he pulled a glass from the cupboard, rinsed it once, and filled it with the cold orange juice in the fridge; freshly squeezed from the pips and orange flesh floating in it. Glancing out of the window, he saw his mother; a large and bulky coat wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the cold as she sorted out the chickens. 

Startled, Will realised that the weather was turning cold rapidly. The only time he remembered the weather dipping like this, sharply descending into a cold whirl of wind and a wind that grazed your cheeks and left your lungs burning for air if you were out in it too long, was when he turned eleven. The ensuing snow had trapped them for a long time, and in that period, Will's mother had been injured by the Dark, and Mary and Paul attacked too; all, in essence, Will's fault for being there. 

In a furious self-assessment, Will had spent months denying his part in the matter, but had come up with the sickening truth that it was his fault they were hurt. It was his responsibility to protect his loved ones, protect the world, and time and again he seemed to fail. 

This truth had plagued him all the while the adventure in Cornwall had occurred, and he'd distracted himself with the Greenwitch and retrieval of the manuscript for that time being. Keeping himself occupied was the only way to relieve the burning torment he felt every day - of the fact other people were injured because of _him_. He'd resolved after that never to let that happen again, but also not to discard his powers and his identity just because of what _might _happen. Besides, if the Dark ever reformed, rose again, he needed to be ready to protect those he'd gone on alone for. 

Returning to the living room, Will cast a wary glance around their living room, a lot smaller than it used to be in his memories. When his true heritage had been revealed, nothing had seemed as it used to. Everything comforting seemed that much smaller, everything unknown seemed that much bigger. Most of his fears were unknown, as was the future, and although Will knew he was doing himself much good he couldn't help feeling that way. 

He spent another few moments lost in thought as he gazed out of the window - _watching, waiting, and always watching_ - when he realised there was something altogether _different _about the atmosphere hanging around the place. Will recognised the brief tint of the darkness in the stormy clouds swelling in the sky, and wished he could put down the weather to nature, but the niggling thought remained _that's the Dark, reminding me they're still there, still waiting to regroup and once again make their move…_ and Will knew to trust that part of him instinctively and without question. 

The Dark's return was inevitable. Will knew this heavily, and bore the encumbrance with a heavy heart and a watchful eye. The Old Ones could travel in and out of time as it was, and that wasn't a power strictly reserved for the Light, and while the servants of the Dark had been banished for the moment, there still remained the taint of the Dark; a mould that grew in the corners and shadows, waiting and biding its time until it could smother its opposition. The only thing uncertain about the situation was _when_, and _how_. It would almost uncertainly be in the subtlest of ways, and Will remembered Merriman's words to him, and fought to stop from trembling at the weight of the memories. 

Will stiffened, and sat upright. _Surely_ that noise wasn't right… 

Slipping silently off the seat and sliding the glass on to the mantelpiece, Will stayed still, poised on the edge of his feet as he listened attentively for that sound he'd heard moments before. 

"What in the world --" Cautiously, Will stopped his outburst and stepped back into the kitchen and glanced outside warily. His mother was still pottering around the chicken shed, looking weighed under by the huge overcoat pulled over her shoulders, and looking content as she opened a bag of chicken seed. 

_Wait a second…_ Will's eyes narrowed. The chickens were usually fed once in the morning, and once at night, not in the afternoon, so why was she feeding them now? Suspicious, Will flattened himself against the worktop and closed his eyes; letting his senses take over. 

_There_. 

The same muffled sound again, more distinct now and definitely closer; perhaps a little more high-pitched than last time, like a shriek, or a giggle… 

Realisation struck Will almost as soon as he figured out the source of the sound, and, with an amused glance towards his mother, he took a deep breath and opened the door; coming face to face with an incredibly shocked female face. 

Will stared at the face of the young woman for a long second, until his brain kicked in, and he threw his arms around his sister's neck abruptly. "_Mary!_" Pulling back, he regarded the sister closest to him in age with a fond, if goofy, smile, and his sister put one icy cold hand out; ruffling his hair good-naturedly. "I thought you weren't due home until the twenty-third!"  
  
"Yeah, that's what we wanted you to think." 

Confused, Will stared at Mary, open-mouthed, and his sister stood aside to let him the see the crowd of people assembled in front of the house. He felt his mouth physically drop open, and for the first time in a while he was speechless. 

"Hey, kid," a familiar, deep voice said; the formal sounding accent tinged with humour. Will stared back happily at his eldest brother, Stephen, and then at James, Max, Robin, Paul, Barbara, and a couple of others behind them he couldn't see, before looking back at Stephen. 

"What -- I mean how --" Will had thoroughly been knocked for six, and gaped even more when James and Max stood aside to reveal Will's father holding onto a large bag of luggage, and four more familiar figures stood, shivering, behind his brothers and sisters. Familiar golden eyes peered at him , flashing from the back of the group. 

"Hi Will," Bran greeted, a grin on his face as he trembled from the cold. Beside him stood Jane, and her two brothers… Will felt a pang at seeing the other two Drews; remembering with a sharp jab of disappointment that they probably still harboured the same resentment they'd held in Trewissick at the beginning of the week. 

"Aren't you going to let us in?" Barbara whined, looking like she was turning blue. 

"Naw, he's forgotten all his manners," Max broke in, rolling his eyes at his youngest brother's speechlessness. 

The familiar sound of an insult from his brother made Will's body kick in, and he stood aside to let them all pile in. He faintly noticed in the corner of his eye that his mother had stopped the pretence of feeding the chickens and had wandered over to come inside too. 

Stephen was the last to pile into the small Stanton household, and grabbed Will by the elbow to grab him in a crushing hug of welcome. "Happy birthday, Will," said Stephen. Will stared at Stephen, thunderstruck, then at his parents, and at all the people crowded in the small kitchen and living room. 

"This is --" Will grinned fiercely. "This is the best birthday present _ever_!" 

"Is to make up for that poxy eighteenth birthday you had," James explained, his round face amiable. "Can't have been much fun with only you, mum, dad and a whole load of poxy chickens." 

"Hey," Alice Stanton protested, shrugging off the overly-large overcoat and hanging it on a peg by the door. "Anyway, Will, this took quite a bit of organisation, but you'd better get on in and greet your friends properly, as your brothers and sisters will all be here till New Year, but Bran and the Drews can only stay till the twenty-third." 

Events as happy as reunions were brief times when Will's birthright as an Old One, and watchman for the Light, was forgotten in the tumultuous whirl of emotions. Will pushed past Max, Barbara and Paul, all looking almost as if they'd never left, and dived into the living room. 

Jane was standing with Simon and Barney, looking gently around their house with a tentative smile, and looking apologetic. She moved over to Will as he appeared in the doorway, and indicated Barney and Simon with a toss of her head. 

"Sorry, _this _was the only way I could come, and I didn't want to miss your nineteenth," Jane said. Will grinned at her, then shot a grin at Barney and Simon. 

Will said, "No problem. Besides, this'll be just like old times, right?" Barney smiled at him, his rough blond hair off-setting his tanned skin, and looking at sixteen to be like the youngster Will remembered so well. Simon was less welcoming, his posture stiff, but his gaze was curious, and Will felt with a jerk that Simon - as the less receptive to magic of the three - had been the one to remember most of the strange events in Trewissick and beyond, and had been the least receptive to memory wipes. Perhaps Simon remembered, or felt, part of what had happened.

"I'm feeling a little neglected over here," an amused sounding voice floated from over the corner, by the window seat, and Will turned to see Bran, sat in the window seat, holding a small rucksack and looking more tickled by the situation than annoyed. 

"Bran!" Will stepped forwards with a grin, and a curious glance at Jane, who was hiding her face behind her hand and giggling. He looked accusingly at the Welsh boy, the Pendragon of so many legends who stood there unknowing of his birthright, and frowned. 

"What?" Bran looked a little concerned. "What's wrong?" 

"That's my seat," Will said flatly, trying to sound stern.  
  
"Ah." Bran relaxed, folding his arms and dropping his rucksack to the floor. Bran caught Will's happy glance and suddenly reached forwards to pull Will's abandoned glass of orange juice off the mantelpiece; taking a defiant sip of the juice. "I guess this is your drink too." 

At university, in the halls of residence, Will normally gave Bran a patented death-glare, but at the moment he was too astounded to actually do anything much. He nodded slowly, and Bran impudently grinned at him before placing the glass back on the mantelpiece. Getting to his feet, Bran crossed over to where Will stood and grabbed his friend in a hug. Will hugged Bran back, and grinned into the face of his friend.

He was faintly aware of a giggle in the corner, and he pulled away from Bran to see Mary sniggering in the doorway. Behind her, a kind of convoy had been set up with the Stantons in the kitchen; bags and cases were being brought in and were being stacked neatly under the table and in the corners. Will presumed they were being brought in from the shed closest to the door, and guessed they'd meant it all to be a surprise for him. 

Looking around at his brothers, sisters, and friends, Will felt a warm shiver of the faint hope of not being alone for a little while at least, which was then followed by the brief stab of the memory that solitude and isolation was the chosen path for him, and was one that he would comply with as he couldn't in all conscience palm it off to someone else; even if he were given the remote chance. He knew the pain too well, and wouldn't give it to his worst enemy. 

Mind you, Will thought fiercely, the sharp memory of Bran's grief and loss over losing Cafall made Caradog Prichard a possible worthy exception to this rule. 

Will's gaze jerked up to meet his parents' happy gazes, and they stood arm in arm in the doorway. His siblings and friends, crammed into the small living room, filled Will with a kind of satisfaction he'd never thought he'd feel again. 

His father smiled at him and Will grinned inanely back. 

"Happy birthday, Will," his father said, indicating his sons and daughters with a spread of his arm. The grin on Will's face that lit up the room gave Roger Stanton that all the organising had definitely been worth it. 

------ 

Time passed rather too quickly for Will's tastes, and he began to see the knowledge in the old poem he had, rather arbitrarily, remembered earlier. 

_When I became a full grown man, Time Ran…_

Catching up with his brothers and sisters had been great. Mary was enjoying her third year in her Media course; she was aiming for a job at a newspaper and had been offered work experience at the Buckinghamshire Beagle for a few months in the summer. Barbara now had a steady job as a secretary in London. Paul, also in London, had finished his music degree a few months ago, and was now part of the Southern Sinfonia, as well as his work in a mixing studio. Robin and James had also followed the musical career - Paul was an examiner for the Royal London College of Music while James' voice had matured into an impressive baritone and he sang in a choir that toured around Europe. No-one particularly knew where Gwen was, she popped up once or twice over the years but disappeared soon after. 

Will suspected his parents knew where she was, but if they did know they weren't saying anything. 

Stephen had been working to secure this holiday at a time when he may have normally been refused by taking on voluntary work, and declared it worth it, but Will felt this reunion less joyful than before. He knew the pain Stephen had been through on hearing the truth of Will's birthright, but Stephen didn't, and trying to pretend it hadn't happened at all took a lot out of Will. Max was working now as a farmer, about forty miles away from the Stanton household, and had been the only sibling Will had seen pretty recently in his GCSE and A-level years. 

It was almost time for dinner when Will settled in the corner with Jane, Simon, Barney and Bran, and the five huddled together with mugs of cocoa to chat, while the other Stantons milled around mysteriously. Will got the impression his friends had been employed to keep him out of the way, but for what, he couldn't guess. 

"So, how are you?" Barney asked politely, as he blew on the hot beverage in his hands. 

Will gave a small shrug. "I'm fine." He cast a glance outside. "Looks like it's going to snow."

"Yes it does," Bran said. "I hope it doesn't." 

Will looked at his friend then in slight confusion, the dark flames from the fireplace flickering colour onto Bran's pale face. The albino welsh boy had taken off his normal sunglasses when the light had faded outside, and sat there cross-legged next to Will, his golden eyes a shimmering pool of hidden emotion. 

"Why, I thought you liked snow," Jane said. 

"I do," Bran said. "But I'm afraid it's so bright down here that if I go out in the snow I'll never be found." 

Will frowned, while Jane and Simon laughed gently. "I don't get it-- _Oh_." Will immediately got Bran's self-deprecating joke, and narrowed his eyes shrewdly to see whether Bran was taking it seriously. Convinced that Bran himself was kidding, making light about his differences, made Will relax, and he smiled faintly. 

"Very funny," Will said.

"We'll have to paint you bright orange, like the golf players do so they don't lose their balls in the snow," Barney said, barely being able to keep his face straight. Bran laughed. 

"Or maybe green, like that paint in the caravan in Cornwall," Simon suggested, looking more at ease than he did than when he'd first entered. 

"Huh?" Barney and Jane spoke at the same time, completely confused, while Will immediately sat up straight, ears pricked as he tried to show he wasn't listening as intently as he was. Simon blinked, and a fuzzy expression came over his face. 

"I… don't remember exactly…" Simon said, sounding really doubtful. "Just… it glowed, and it was… Dark…"

The word seemed to have a transformation over Bran, Barney and Jane, and Will's four guests looked sombre and quiet in the flickering firelight.

Suddenly Barney snorted, breaking the mood. "Glowed _and _was dark?" 

Jane giggled, and Will felt the tension flow almost visibly out of the strained moment; his mind in turmoil.

"A bit ridiculous, no?" Simon said, trying to sound blithe about the whole thing, but the troubled expression on his face did nothing to dispel the worry in Will's heart. 

"Maybe it was glow-in-the-dark paint?" Bran suggested. 

"Perhaps," Simon conceded, flicking a wary glance at Will, and feeling a little unsure of himself from the passive expression he received in return. 

"I don't remember such a caravan," Jane said. Will cursed Jane's acute sense of observation and clarity, and hoped they'd drop the subject soon. He felt a curious stare in his direction, and he glanced to the side, thinking it was Simon's memory trying to pull itself back into his consciousness. Instead, he caught Bran's intense golden eyes, narrowed like a hawk's deadly gaze, bearing down on him and as he met the gaze he saw Bran flinch away; cheeks burning instantly red. Will made a mental note to ask Bran about it later, and turned back to look at Jane. 

"I don't think you were there," Simon said. Jane frowned. 

"I guess I can't have been," Jane said, the same troubled look Simon was sporting moments before being echoed on her features. Will tried to push down the overwhelming sense of foreboding doom rising up like bile from his gut, and the accompanying physical sickness.  
  
Coupled with Will's uneasy feeling about the weather, and continuing feeling of suspense and drudgery and pain, it wasn't boding well for a quiet birthday. Writing it all off as coincidence, for the moment, as writing something of as a complete impossibility was something an Old One never did, Will concentrated on his friends and trying to maintain as normal an attitude for the moment. If they remembered, all hell could break loose for them, and Will didn't want them to face the pain he endured every day. Nobody deserved that kind of anguish, but for Merriman before him, and Will now, it was a burden that must be endured, for humanity to survive. 

"Hush about that, Jane, I think Will's bored enough by your flightiness from the couple of months at Uni, he doesn't need it from you in the holiday," Barney said, sounding disgusted. 

Jane glared at her brother, then instantly looked apologetic. "Sorry, Will." 

Will held up one hand. "It's fine, no apology needed." He looked up as his mother appeared in the doorway, watching Will with his friends with a warm smile on her face, and Will felt again that twinge of pain in his gut. His mother deserved to know the truth about him, about her son, but then again she didn't deserve the pain that accompanied the truth.

"Will, do you want your usual tomorrow?" said his mother. 

Will grinned, nodding. "I hope you have enough onions," he said rather too loudly. Bran and the Drews exchanged a confused glance, which grew more bewildered as a mock-scream came from the hallway. Will recognised James' anguished scream and sniggered. "Thank you."

"My pleasure, Will," said his mother, as she disappeared off again. 

"What was that about?" said Barney.

Will chuckled gently. "It's a tradition for us Stantons, to have our favourite meals on our birthdays, and mine is liver and onions. It causes a lot of discomfiture to say the least with my brothers and sisters…" 

"Revenge, huh?" Bran commented. He met Will's glance with a grin, then a soft muted sigh of disappointment. "I wish I had brothers and sisters. It must be nice to be in such a large family."

Will shot him a disgruntled look. "It's a nightmare! None of your own things, all you get are hand-me-downs, talked down to because you're the youngest, sharing bedrooms, it's… crowded. I wouldn't exchange it for anything, though, I guess, when it comes down to it…"

Will's voice held a curious note of anguish and suffering that made Jane and Bran start slightly, made Barney bite his lip in that kind of confusion where there's something you've forgotten and can't remember however much you try, and Simon's brow was furrowed; the conservative boy was obviously deep in thought. 

"It's all right, Bran, I'll let you have Simon and Jane," said Barney with an imperious nod. Jane's soft expression of humour changed abruptly to one of outrage, and she jabbed her brother in the side with her elbow. Barney let out a soft grunt of surprise, and spilled cocoa over his arm. Instantly, Simon and Jane were at his side, mopping it up with paper tissues.

"Good thing it was cold," Simon said, no small amount of relief in his voice. Barney pulled a face at his older brother.

Bran frowned thoughtfully, and Will watched his pale friend in silence as he sipped at the mug in his hands. "Barney's right, the cocoa _is _cold… How long have we been talking?" 

Jane shrugged in unawareness, while Simon cast a glance to the clock balanced precariously on the wall. Simon let out a small whistle of surprise. "It's eight o' clock."  
  
As if on cue, Barney's stomach grumbled, and the youngest of those amassed pulled a face. "Sorry."

"Don't apologise," said Will. "I'm pretty starving, come to think of it. You guys?"  
  
"Ravenous," said Bran and Will leant back on his hands to peer around the kitchen door.

"I think dinner's nearly ready," said Will.

"_Dinner's nearly ready, everyone!_" said a female voice from the kitchen, which Will identified quickly as Mary. 

"I gather dinner's nearly ready," Bran said dryly. 

----- 

If getting everyone into the house and in position to surprise Will had been a challenge, then dinner was an Everest of challenges. Fitting everyone around the huge table in the kitchen was a squeeze, but it gave everyone an added spark of the Christmas spirit as they sat around, jostling elbows, and sharing plates because there weren't quite enough. 

Later, after dinner, and another two hours of light meaningless conversation, Mr. and Mrs. Stanton ordered everyone to bed. Although they started to complain loudly, when they finally shunted themselves upstairs they saw why - it would take a long time for all the beds to be fixed up. 

Mary and Barbara's room was the largest room, if you didn't take into consideration Stephen's attic room, and so the two girls took Jane away with them into their room and Mary slept on the floor on a camp-bed, letting Jane have her bed. Although Jane protested violently, Mary returned that the floor at home was better than the student accommodation at Stanley, and so Jane took the bed a little bit warily. Their room was the easiest set up, and for the next hour so the door was closed, but Will found if you crept up to it in that time that he'd hear a lot of wild girlish giggling, and more than a few mentions of Bran and himself. 

Stephen gallantly said he would share with James this vacation, not wanting to kick Will out of the room just for a couple of weeks. Well -- Will had assumed it was gallant, but it wasn't -- Stephen was letting him use the attic room to share with his friends. 

Paul helpfully carried up some blankets and two Li-Los to the attic bedroom, and Will led Bran, Simon and Barney up there. The room enchanted the other three boys immediately, with the old pictures of Stephen looking disgruntled in his dress uniform, and the knick-knacks over the desk from all over the world; presents from Stephen.  
  
Bran turned to Will as they looked around his room. "You really idolise your older brother, don't you?" 

Will looked at Bran, a soft smile of pain on his face. "I used to. Until --"

"Until what?" said Simon, intrigued. 

"Until I found out he was a man, nothing more," Will said, with a curious look on his face of such grief that silence echoed in the room for a long moment after Will's quiet statement.

"Well, I'd be pretty much surprised if he wasn't," Barney said suddenly, and that seemed to snap everyone out of the moment. 

"I think we have a problem," Bran said, holding up the two Li-Los and kicking around the blankets that Paul had brought up a little. 

"Huh?" Will stared at the Li-Los, then at the bed, then at the floor, then at his three guests. He coloured immediately, and tried to stop blushing. "Ah -- I'll sleep downstairs."

"Don't be silly," Barney said. "Two people can sleep in the bed. It's quite big."

Will took in Simon's sudden look of panic, Barney's careless shrug, and then Bran's sudden quietness. Crossing over to the bed, Will experimentally sat down on one side and looked up expectantly at Bran. Bran looked shocked at Will's gaze, and then noticed the relief on both Simon and Barney's face - the two boys had assumed as brothers they'd have to share, and Will tried to hide a grin of amusement; the brief memory that he shouldn't -- couldn't -- have of the two boys kicking each other when forced to sleep in the same bed in an obscure relative's house was more than enough to convince him the two boys shouldn't sleep in the same bed. The thought of making Bran share with one of the Drews also made his skin crawl, although he couldn't put why into words, and for some reason he'd instantly just known Bran wouldn't mind too much. 

From Bran's quiet expression, his almost translucent skin shimmering in the light from Will's lone light-bulb hanging high from the ceiling without a lampshade to cover the spidery light, Will was almost positive he'd assumed wrong about his friend; until Bran moved around and plonked himself up on the bed, lying down next to Will and crossing his hands behind his head. Will exchanged a glance with Barney, and found the youngest boy contemplating what he was contemplating, and with a nod, both Barney and Will launched on Bran; tickling him viciously. 

Bran snorted loudly, and assailed his attackers with Will's pillow. 

The fight was brief and furious, and somehow ended up with everyone the floor in a mess of blankets and sheets and pillows, and ended when Roger Stanton poked his head through the door to see what the noise was. He stared at the giggling pile of boys with amazement, and even normally conservative Simon had really gotten past his ingrained previous prejudice against Will to join in. 

"Boys, your mother is convinced an elephant is going to fall through the ceiling. Calm down and get your beds ready, else I'll get Stephen to come in and sort you all out." 

Will scrambled to his feet quickly in a panic. He remembered once, when he was nine, Stephen had just completed his navy training, and had sorted him out. It had involved Will not wanting a bath, and Stephen hosing him down outside in the pig-sty with ice-cold water. 

"Sorry, dad," Will said. 

Roger Stanton ruffled his son's hair good-naturedly.

"Good night, Will," he said. 

Will listened quietly while his father disappeared back downstairs, and he turned to the others with a rueful grin on his face. Bran smirked suddenly, and threw the pillow up to Will. The next half hour was used in figuring out how to attach the old pump to the Li-Los, and they took it in turns to pump up the rubber sleeping mattresses. When they were done, and they'd managed to get into the bathroom after kicking a sleep Robin out of it, they piled back into the bedroom; Barney on one side of the bed, huddled in a pile of blankets, and Simon on a Li-Lo next to his brother. Will with great difficulty, paused by the side of the bed; pulling off his trousers and settling them on the chair. He climbed into the bed and under the blankets, trying not to watch as Bran did the same. He caught a brief glance of pale legs, and a smooth expanse of skin, Bran obviously also slept in just T-shirt and boxers, and flushing uncomfortably Will turned his heated face away for a second; catching Barney's amused glance as he did so.  
  
Will turned instantly to see Bran looking at him for the other side of the pillow. Barney had been right in saying there was enough room for two, but this didn't really leave them much room to move.

Simon was the one who took the responsibility of sliding out of the warm and comfy Li-Lo on the floor to flip the switch off, but a hazy light still filled the room from the moonlight outside, enough to see by.

"Night, everyone," Barney said, turning over on his Li-Lo and demonstrating that instant ability of being able to fall asleep wherever, whenever. Simon wasn't far behind him, and the light snore of the Drew boys made getting to sleep difficult for Will. 

After a moment's thought, Will realised with a thud in his chest that he wasn't uncomfortable at all with the Drews there. His source of unease was right next to him, slightly gleaming in the weird moonlight and lying just as stiffly as him. With great difficulty, Will turned to his side facing Bran, and tugged at the blankets. Bran responded instantly with a scowl, grabbing onto the blankets so Will didn't hog them all, and the sullen moment seemed to have dispersed quietly. Will felt himself drift off into sleep slowly, as he watched his friend breathe gently and felt the other shift gently in his slumber. 

When he woke up -- which was a surprise in itself for Will considering he didn't remember actually falling asleep -- he felt Bran's breath, warm on his face, and he opened his eyes in amazement. It was a lot warmer than the warmth just blankets normally gave… 

The reason for the warmth was suddenly clear to Will, and it took him a moment to realise why. Somehow, in the course of the night, Will had managed to wrap his arms around Bran, and the other's head was resting against his chest; white hair a stark contrast to the black Will wore, the black Will always wore after turning back the Dark and facing the lonely solitude of the ages. The brief, irrational thought that if at least a _small _part of his watch could be like _this _then he wouldn't really mind crossed his thoughts erratically, and Will tried to calm down his breathing.

When did _this _happen? 

When did he stop thinking of Bran as a friend, as a comrade-in-arms, as the heroic boy who had crossed into the lost lands with him and completed an impossible quest with him? 

Bran was a _King _for crying out loud… 

Will stiffened suddenly as Bran shifted, but the boy didn't wake up; merely whispering one word quietly into the night.  
  
"_Will…_"

The quietness of his own name, spoken so gently by the sleeping boy in his arms, made Will withdraw his arms as quickly as he could, without the tactfulness he would have used if being otherwise rational. The sharp move jerked Bran awake, and the boy, now sprawled over the pillow, looked up at him in disbelief. "_Will…_" Bran snapped, sounding annoyed at being woken up. The sound of his name spoken with so much exasperation made Will realise that Bran had been asleep when he'd whispered Will's name, and he'd just brusquely woken Bran up. _When you could have easily had another hour of sleep with him there_, his treacherous mind added. Will felt another blush creeping onto his cheeks and he abruptly got out of the bed; narrowly avoiding stepping on Barney.

Bran sat upright in bed, hair dishevelled, and he watched Will curiously. "Wait for me!" 

He scrambled out of the bed while Will waited, hand paused on doorway, both of them looking tousled by sleep, and they both used the empty bathroom at the same time to wash their faces and brush their teeth. When they returned to the bedroom, Simon and Barney were already up and awake, and they piled to the bathroom leaving Bran and Will to get dressed. 

"Did you sleep all right?" Will asked conversationally as he opened the cupboard door to change behind. 

"Yeah," Bran grunted, "until the rude awakening." 

Will blushed again, and decided that the teenage part of him - while keeping him slightly sane - had some rather disadvantageous attributes; like hormones, for example, which made him pine after someone, something, he couldn't possibly ever have. Bran was the Pendragon, the immortal legend, the son of King _Arthur_, and a denizen of the High Magic. Even if he _was _just a mortal now, having given up his birthright, the echoes of it were still strikingly in his mannerisms and his mien and his bearing. 

Of course, Bran was also short of a few pivotal memories concerning his existence, and their quests together, and Bran's memories of Will consisted on a few meetings in Wales as Will convalesced, and a couple of months at University. Will, however, had witnessed Bran's grief at the truth and at the loss of Cafall, his elation at knowing instinctively what to do, how to wield Eirias and the shining light of triumph in his eyes. Will had known Bran's churning emotions as he decided whether to follow his father into forever, or whether to go on, mortal and unknowing. Will had known Bran's choice, and felt the small pang of disappointment, and heard Merriman's voice in his mind telling him not to worry. 

"Sorry about that," Will said, as he pulled on a black jumper, and, after a brief glance out of the window, his black fleece jacket. When Will emerged from the cupboard, Bran was already dressed in a mixture of blue and white, and the welsh boy frowned at Will's choice of colour. 

"Don't you have any other colours?" Bran said, pushing past Will. Will's mouth dropped open as Bran slid past him, and started to rifle through Will's clothes. Bran emerged triumphantly with a red knitted jumper, and waved it threateningly at Will. "Do you want to put this on, or do you want me to do it for you?"

_Option number two_, said Will's brain.

"Option number one," Will said firmly, horrified at his own brain's disloyalty, shrugging off his jacket and jumper and putting on the red one.

"Much better," said Bran, cocking his head to one side. "Now you don't look so much like you're mourning something you never had in the first place. Happy birthday, Will." 

Will grinned impishly, and his hand strayed to his fleece jacket. Bran scowled, but said nothing, so Will put the black on over the red.

"I don't believe I quite get you, Will Stanton," Bran said slowly, moving over to the desk and kicking Barney's Li-Lo out of the way. "There's photos of you downstairs, and you used to wear colours, up until a certain point where you just started to wear black. Why?" 

_Because of the Dark… Because I needed to remind myself it was there, constantly, around me… Because I thought maybe I could hide, and the Dark might not find me, they might confused this tortured soul for one of their own…_

Will stifled the sudden answers welling to the forefront of his mind, and he shrugged. "It's my favourite colour. Plus, it doesn't stain easily." 

"Hm," said Bran detachedly, as Barney and Simon appeared in the doorway, faces red after having rubbed them violently to wake up.

"Let's get downstairs," Will said. He indicated the bedroom. "Don't mess it up too much," he added to Simon and Barney. Barney pulled a face, and Simon, reserved as ever, immediately headed for the bag of clothes he'd brought up. 

"You know your way back downstairs, right?" Will said. 

"Yes," Barney said, sharing a glance with his brother and for some incomprehensible reason sniggering gently. Will didn't like the sound of the derisive giggle, and headed suspiciously with Bran downstairs. 

Breakfast was another crushing affair. Most of Will's brothers and sisters were awake, and Will greeted Jane with a smile as he and Bran took their seats near the cooker. Simon and Barney appeared, still rubbing sleep out of their eyes, minutes later; while it took a good ten minutes for Max and James, the last two asleep, to stumble downstairs.

Will wasn't allowed to open any presents or cards, for some reason that Stephen mumbled and Will didn't quite catch, but he was startled by Barney as he tried to eat some of the delicious scrambled eggs his mother had cooked.

"Here, Will," said Barney, passing him a rolled up piece of paper. Will felt the weight of all his family and friends watching him, and he nervously took the piece of paper. He noticed even Jane looking confused, although Simon looked clued-up on whatever it was. "Happy birthday." 

Will sat back with a wary glance at his family and, shielding the contents from everyone else, unrolled the paper and started. A deep flush instantly crossing his cheeks, Will instantly pulled the paper shut and rolled it up under the table furiously.  
  
"_Barney!_" Will hissed, cheeks crimson as he wondered briefly if he'd ever stop being so embarassed and if he'd ever stop blushing so ridiculously all the time. 

Barney impudently stuck his tongue out. "Sorry. I woke up in the night, and couldn't help it." He cocked his head to one side. "It was so _cute_." 

"Barney Drew, you are an unmitigated git," Will declared furiously, while his family stared in confusion.

"Don't we get to see?" Jane said, pouting delicately. Even Bran looked disappointed at Will's cover-up of the present, and Will furiously defended his present as Paul tried to tickle him in the ribs and retrieve the roll of paper.

Will had a valid reason for wanting to defend his present. It was a pencil sketch, obviously by Barney by the vividness and strokes of the pencil, of Will and Bran; Will with his arms around Bran, Bran with his white hair splayed over Will's chest, and a happy content look on both of their faces. 

"Thank you, Barney," Will said, his voice low, as Barney sniggered. 

"You're welcome," Barney said. 

Simon just looked amused, and, after a moment the rest seemed to be consigned to the fact they'd never see the picture; especially if it were as incriminating as it sounded. 

Breakfast continued in an unruly disorder of toast being passed hand to hand, eggs being eaten, orange juice being alternately gulped down and spilled on the tablecloth, tea being brewed and poured and lively chatter alternating between the eating. It would have continued in such a manner if there hadn't been a loud rapping sound on the door. 

Max moved to open the door, and a gust of wind accompanied the figure he let in. Will started violently, and the young woman stood arrogantly in the kitchen was familiar. Way too familiar for Will's tastes. She held a brightly coloured box in one hand.  
  
"Brought a present for the birthday boy," Maggie Barnes said, as she pulled the light-blue scarf off her head and smiled sweetly at Max. A cat-call from James was silenced by a glare from Max, and Will's second-oldest brother fidgeted uneasily. It was still an ongoing joke that still popped up from time-to-time about Maggie Barnes' attraction to Max, but Will had thought the jokes harmless and Maggie permanently gone.

_Apparantly not_. 

Will felt a shiver course up his spine, and tried not to tense up too much. Apparantly the jokes weren't harmless, by Max's fidgeting and blush, and she, apparantly, was still alive and in this time. 

_Meaning she wasn't so completely an agent of the Dark, maybe just influenced…_

He felt her gaze suddenly on his own, and saw the subtle expression in her eyes which Will recognised as the same desperate expression on her face that day in the snow when she tried to get the bronze Sign from him. 

"I would have a word in private with you, Watcher," Maggie said, her tone imperious, and her gaze never left Will's own. 

There was a general confusion around the table, and only Bran seemed to have noticed whom Maggie referred to. Trying to stop the churning in his stomach, Will slowly climbed to his feet - ignoring the couple of curious looks he was receiving - and jerked his head towards the door. Maggie got the hint, and, ignoring his family and jealously glaring brother, Will stepped outside with Maggie Barnes. 

Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but Will held up a finger to his mouth to indicate she should be silent, and she held her tongue until Will led her a short distance away from the house. He leant against one of the sheds and looked at her slowly. 

"What do you want, witch girl?" Will said, his voice brisk and demeanour brusque and commanding. The Old One within him was shining out forcibly, angrily. Will folded his arms to keep his fury in check.  
  
Maggie frowned prettily, but Will saw past the simpering expression, and Maggie eventually settled her mouth into a thin line. "I need your help, Old One," she spat out, looking disgusted at herself for stooping so low as to ask for the help of an Old One.  
  
Will frowned, instantly suspicious. "Exactly what kind of help?" 

Maggie looked to the ground, before looking up at him; her dark eyes a flash of anger directed not at Will, but at something else entirely different. "Help that Merriman gave Hawkin."  
  
"What, letting him die?" Will's voice held the taut resonance of his power, and Maggie recoiled despite herself.

"No. He was… Not of this time," Maggie said, phrasing her words carefully. She lifted her gaze impetuously. "And neither am I." 

"You want to go back," Will said, with gut-churning realisation. "Do you think I'm insane?"

Maggie's eyes narrowed and she shuffled in the soggy grass defiantly. "What do you mean?"

"You think I'd send you back in _time_? So you could alert earlier agents of the Dark of a time when we would be more susceptible to an attack?" Will snorted in disgust. "Don't take me for an idiot, girl." 

"Don't take me for one either," Maggie returned, just as disgusted. 

"Well, you allied yourself with the Dark, and got yourself stranded here. I'd say that was idiotic," Will said.

"You allied yourself with the Light, Old One, and got yourself stranded here for eternity, watching, all alone. Tell me, how can you stand it?" Maggie said, hands akimbo. Will stared impassively back at her. "Fine. Then let me say goodbye to your brother, I won't trouble you again this day. But I tell you one thing - you'll regret your decision."

"I didn't say I'd decided yet," Will said mildly.

Maggie's eyes narrowed. "I know you Old Ones. You've decided, all right." She looked affronted, but made no move to change his mind. Will looked at her, his face blank, and Maggie sighed; turning back to the house and stomping to the door. Will glowered slightly, and pushed past her to enter the house. He clambered up the step, and folded his arms; preventing her from coming in. Maggie made as if to move and force her way in, but instead she relaxed and made to move away. Then she turned, in the middle of the path, and stared at Will who had stepped back and was now regarding her with a cool, darkened glare. 

"That wasn't a very humane answer, Will Stanton," Maggie said, loudly, making sure she was heard by all the inhabitants of the Stanton kitchen. "But wait -- I forgot, you're not exactly human, are you?"

Will raised his head wearily, his voice brisk and clear enough to be heard by Maggie as she started to walk out of the place; head held high and manner abrupt. "Maybe not." Will conceded, blue-grey eyes stormy and inexpressive all in the same moment, and Maggie stopped in her tracks to look at him, amazed. "But in spirit I'm more human than you will ever be."

Maggie let out a derisive snort, and turned her back on him then; staunchly walking away through the dead leaves and muddied track, and Will closed the door. He leant against the cool surface for a moment, before shaking off some of the dew from his shoes and impassively returning the curious glare from everyone on the table. Will sighed, and slid around the table to sit gently down next to Bran again, and he bit into his cold, abandoned toast as if nothing unusual had happened.

"Aren't you going to open your present, Will?" James said, his eyes alight with the mischief that usually laced his voice when he was teasing Max about Maggie Barnes. 

Will didn't respond, and his gaze slid to Max's. Max seemed to be on the edge of his seat, his hands clenched, and knuckles white with rage.

"Are you and she --" Max said eventually, his voice hard and eyes determined. In spite of Will's self-control, Will snorted in disdain, and then felt a flash of quiet anguish from someone else in the room; someone that wasn't Max. Slowly, he edged a glance out of the corner of his eyes to see Bran; poised and tense on the edge of his seat. 

"Don't be stupid," Will said, his voice holding that clear briskness of an Old One. Max relaxed, satisfied, but Will's tone of voice still made the rest of the table uneasy. 

It wasn't until after breakfast, with the whole family still quiet and contemplative, that Stephen got the faint impression of something that had happened which he must remember. He had volunteered to stay behind and clear the table with James' help, but his younger brother had disappeared off moments after he'd promised to clear away the breakfast things. Stephen deliberately lingered by the cupboard closest to the door into the dining room, and gazed at Will softly. 

His little brother was sitting in the corner, clutching the piece of paper Barney had given him protectively; Will's gaze dropping more than once onto the lissom, willowy pale boy Bran. Will was talking with his friends animatedly, his gestures wide as he related some hilarious incident or other, and the Drews were laughing while Bran looked at Will secretively just as much as the other did in return.

Stephen was less perturbed by that fact than he thought he should be, but he still kept watching the small group intently as he pretended to busy himself with putting away the cereal. Will was now fending off mocking comments from Robin and Paul, and Bran, during them, was looking lost and altogether too quiet. Stephen stored away those bits of information quietly, to be used later, and to hopefully answer some more of the niggling questions he had. 

Like why Will looked like the entire burden of the world was upon him. 

Like why he wanted to protect his little brother more than ever, just by seeing him.

Like why, whenever he met Will's gaze, he felt an incomprehensible sadness and an overwhelming grief that choked him up and left him physically winded.

Like why Maggie Barnes' use of the term _Watcher _for his little brother sent an indefinable shiver up his spine, and made him wonder why the term sounded so familiar. Too familiar.  
  
-------

_[End of part one] _

-------


	2. Past and Presence

_Title_: **The Dust of Time **

_Rating: _PG-13. 

_Author: _Mizzy (mizzy_2k@yahoo.co.uk or castle_ebgb@yahoo.co.uk) 

_Summary: _Will struggles with his conscience, while struggling with the Darkest threat he's come up against so far - his own family's memories. Will/Bran Slash. 

_Disclaimer: _"The Dark is Rising Sequence" does not belong to me, it belongs to Susan Cooper, the amazing Goddess that she is. This is written by a fan, for the fans, and no money has exchanged hands what-so-ever. 

_Author's Notes_: There've been a few alterations in the previous chapter, none too obvious. 

----- 

"When as a child I laughed and wept, Time crept. 

When as a youth I waxed more bold, Time strolled. 

When I became a full-grown man, Time RAN. 

When older still I daily grew, Time FLEW. 

Soon I shall find, in passing on, Time gone." 

Poem from the front of the clock case in the North Transept of Chester Cathedral, attributed to H. Twells (1823-1900). 

---------- 

[Part Two] - "Past and Presence." 

---------- 

December 21st 2003 

---------- 

Will had grown more or less used to having less people around him as time went on, and had begun to wonder if that was because they would have left anyway, or if his nature pushed them away. Actually _having _people who wanted to be close to him was a rather novel concept for the last of the Old Ones, and he took a while to adjust to the happy blur of colours, sounds and activities going on around him. He could barely bring himself to acknowledge that everyone was there for _him_, let alone actively acknowledge the fact that Max, Stephen, Barbara and his father were conspicuously absent.

When it started to snow, however - icy, light flakes that danced through the air to settle in sparse patches on the ground - Will noticed and was suitably antsy and unapproachable until mid-morning when it settled to a three inch depth and then stopped. 

Bran and the Drews - probably having been told to keep Will occupied and keep his mind off things - noticed his preoccupation with the snow, and had been fairly disappointed to find Will off in some kind of world of his own while the snow feel and carpeted the world with a cold white glow.

"I always used to wish for snow on my birthday," Will mused softly, as he moved his gaze from the window to the monopoly board set up on the carpet. Barney had found the battered game in the cupboard, so old as to have "patent pending" stamped on the middle of the board, and Jane had set it up to try and snap Will out of his seeming melancholy.

"Used to?" Bran looked up from studying the property card he was holding to blink at Will curiously. 

Simon took the dice from Bran, promptly rolling a double four which landed him in jail. "Why did you stop?" said Simon, after Will didn't respond.

Will blinked, startled at the question. "Hm? Oh, I got my wish once. On my eleventh birthday…" He trailed off, and the four waited expectantly for the rest of the sentence. When it became apparent that there _wasn't _anything else coming, Bran sighed exasperatedly. 

"Will?" Bran said, looking at Will with a curious and annoyed frown on his face. "You know, I heard finishing sentences was a lost art for you English, but I didn't know it was this bad." 

Will arched one eyebrow slowly, and Bran flushed under Will's quiet scrutiny. "I did finish my sentence." 

"Hmph," Bran snorted in disbelief. "You do that an awful lot. Start a story, and leave it nowhere near finished." 

"He's right," Jane said, absently taking money from Barney and handing him another hotel, which he plonked down ceremoniously on Mayfair. 

"What is this?" Will said quietly, sounding a little hurt and betrayed. "Are you trying to tell me I'm not leading my life right?" His tone was laced with a hurt sarcasm, and the look on his face was a curious cross of disquiet and regret. 

"No, we're telling you to stop feeling so sorry for yourself," Simon said, his eyes flashing with a determined anger and concern. The atmosphere settled to a wary tension, and everyone seemed to be watching Will. 

Will looked as if he was going to make a retaliatory comment, and then he relaxed. The intent expression on his face instantly melted away into a weak smile. "Sorry. It's just -- I don't think I like birthdays all that much." 

"Don't like growing older, hey?" Bran said, looking studiously over the top of his glasses at the money in his hands. "I don't blame you." 

"I guess that's why," said Will, but the expression on his face lacked conviction and none of them believed his words. "Is it my turn?" With a dubious frown, Will looked up at 

Barney solemnly handed Will the dice. Will rolled the dice, and landed on Mayfair. 

"That'll be all your money and property please," Barney said, wishing that Will's mood hadn't broken the happy atmosphere.

"Great person to have 'round on your birthday, you are," Bran commented, his singsong Welsh accent sounding even more melodic in its sarcasm. 

"There's just too many damn _people_ in this family!" 

All five around the board looked up at the two intruding voices. Will rolled his eyes as he realised it was James and Mary, pottering around with a pile of pretty coloured paper, presumably for more paper chains. 

"James, mind your manners. We have guests, and it's Will's birthday." 

James flushed at Mary's reprimand. "Sorry. But there are!" 

Barney smothered a giggle with his hand which seemed to somehow enhance the sound. He immediately looked apologetic and flushed a bright red. "Ma always thought three were enough. Wonder what she'd think of three girls and six boys!"

"There were seven," Will said, so gently it was almost as if he hadn't spoken.  
  
"Aye," Mary said, sharing a sad glance with Will as she flounced over with the gained grace granted her after overcoming the trials of adolescence. "Our Will is the seventh son of a seventh son. Da was one too. Well," she corrected, "he was a seventh son." 

"Oooh, Will, you didn't say you were psychic," Bran teased. "All that time I thought you were off with the _Talwyth Teg _and you really were."

Jane glanced curiously at Will. The youth seemed to be faking a smile rather than being genuinely amused. Will's gaze moved suddenly to hers and Jane felt heat rush up her neck, burning her ears. Furious at being caught staring, Jane moved her gaze swiftly away to Bran's. "Talwyth Teg?"

"Little people," Bran said. "Fairies."

Jane took the opportunity to roll the dice, and also landed on Mayfair. With a surreptitious wink at her, Simon took the dice and threw it before Barney could fine her the same amount he'd crippled Will with. Mary shared a giggle with Jane before leaving the room, dragging a protesting James with her. 

"You thought I was off with the fairies?" Will looked back at the game and scrunched his nose up. "Thanks a lot." 

Bran just smiled sunnily. "You're welcome, _bach_." 

----- 

He knew something was up when Jane disappeared. Simon and Barney and Bran (who all seemed to be in on whatever it was now) were trying very hard to distract him with a rather raucous game of Snakes and Ladders, and were tenuously succeeding because Bran kept brushing Will's hand with his own. _Anyone would be distracted by that_, he reasoned with himself as he felt himself blush when Bran knocked his elbow, and furiously refused to analyse it in further detail. He'd been doing a lot of that recently, after all, and was getting quite good at it. 

Simply asking where she could be wasn't exactly a very subtle approach, and the Old Ones were nothing if not subtle, so Will bided his time, letting them plan their little surprise. He'd sort of rumbled their first surprise by hearing them arrive, so he resolved to not inquire about this other surprise. 

Finally it was Barney who asked where Jane was. Will was surprised for a second, but then figured that Barney, as the youngest, would be subject to the same prejudices as he; namely, that the youngest boy would be the one most likely to blurt out secrets. 

"I haven't seen her for ages," Simon said, a little too simply for Will's tastes. Simon's face didn't even flicker as Will looked him up and down shrewdly. Simon would make a hell of a poker player in the future, if he could overcome the pompous side of his nature. 

Bran frowned. "Well, if a sheep goes missing, and the dogs can't find her, we pretend we are the sheep for a while, and see where we might have gone." 

"So I have to pretend I'm Jane?" Barney frowned. "Oh dear." 

Will sniggered into his sleeve, and Barney turned his pensive frown into a scowl directed at Will. "Are you mocking me with your age, oh, old one?" 

Will's insides turned momentarily cold before he realised that Barney was trying to make mockery of Will's status as an eighteen year old, and cursed the Gift that Barney had. Barney was still a Seer, he still Saw things beyond his own knowledge despite whatever the Light or the Dark could throw at him. Blinding a Seer was impossible, unless there simply was nothing further to be Seen. "Ha, ha," Will said flatly. "How much longer do I have to pretend that I haven't noticed everyone disappearing?" 

Simon blinked with shock, and Will tried not to feel smug that he'd rumbled their plan. However, Will was still too close to the world of men not to feel a little giddy at scoring a point in the one-upmanship game the two still played, whether consciously or unconsciously. Bran, however, remained cheerfully oblique. 

"Don't know what you're on about, old chap," Bran said, mimicking a posh English accent and not quite managing it. "But whatever the question was, I'm sure ten more minutes should cover it." 

"Ten more minutes of Bran kicking your arse at this game," Barney supplied helpfully. 

"He is _not _kicking my arse," Will responded promptly, with a hurt look, and the game continued almost as if it hadn't been broken. 

----- 

It was some time later. Will looked at the barn, and back at Bran, and made a disbelieving cluck in the back of his throat. Bran flatly stared back, elbowing Will in the side and using Will's surprise to yank off the black fleece. Will scowled and folded his arms across his chest, his cheeks reddened from the forceful wind (or so he liked to believe) and returned Bran's quiet glare. 

"This is ridiculous," Will said softly, looking from Bran to Barney to Simon and then back to Bran. Bran implacably threw Will's fleece over to Barney, who caught it, preventing Will from slinging it on again. He sighed. "So," he said, a little too loudly. "Jane's fallen down in here, has she?" 

"Act surprised," Bran hissed, his narrowed glance tinged with amusement as he elbowed Will once more in the side and pushed him at the door. Will shot an accusatory glance at Bran. 

"I managed to act surprised when James said Jane had fallen over and hurt herself and needed the first aid kit, didn't I?" Will shot back, annoyed. 

"That was only because someone jabbed you in the side, and you know it," Bran responded. "Eh, misery guts, we're here. Look all shocked." 

"Don't jab me again, and I will," Will said, yanking his red jumper down again and flicking a longing glance in the direction of the black fleece that Barney was dutifully carrying. 

"Me? You're blaming me?" Bran's face was the picture of innocence. 

"Aye, I am, and don't you forget it either." 

Bran wrinkled his nose. "Get in with you." 

"Yes, sir!" 

Will hefted the first aid tin up onto his left arm, and he elbowed the door open with his right hand. "Hallo?" 

The dark barn stared back at him. Will squinted uneasily at it and wondered irrationally if he should stare back. Dark areas had that kind of effect on him nowadays. Darkness and shadows had a presence to them he had never noticed as a child, and was now too wary of. 

"SURPRISE!!!!!!!" 

The lights flickered on a good five seconds before the shout, and Will quickly stared into the bright lamps overhead. The lights blinded him for a good ten seconds, making his pained expression resemble a surprised one. He hadn't even needed the third jab in his ribs, this time from an overly helpful Barney. 

The barn was decorated lavishly, with banners and streamers and balloons coating the walls in their bright gaiety, with every possible colours sparkling and streaming around the room. Fairy lights were strung over the beams, and a table laden with an impressive array of buffet food literally lined one wall. A table piled high with gifts was next to the door, underneath a banner saying "Happy 18th birthday Will!" 

"Happy birthday, Will," Mrs. Stanton said, rushing forwards and embracing her son, his father leaning slightly into the hug for a brief moment, his deep voice echoing the sentiment.

"We thought you'd like a party," Stephen said, his voice coming from the right. He looked at Will for a long moment. "Unless you think you're too old for a party, and we can cancel it…" 

"You could not!" Will protested, almost fully human again, just for a single moment. 

----- 

"Too old for a party, my arse," Will muttered, cheerfully despondent as he sat happily in a sea of clothes and books and stationery and carefully folded wrapping paper. Music blared in the background, while a sea of relatives spun around on a makeshift dance floor. He cringed at seeing Mary attempting to swing dance with the stiff and formal Simon Drew. Will turned back to Bran, whose expression was a queer mix of amusement and confusion. 

Bran flashed him a low and dirty look. "That's the third time you've mentioned your arse tonight." 

"Quite a saggy old arse it is too," Will responded readily, brightly lifting up a small plastic cup full of cherryade and mock-toasting the Welsh teenager with it. 

"And that makes it four." 

"Ah, so a Morgan like you can actually count. Thrilling, thrilling." Will snorted into his cherryade when Bran muttered something that sounded vaguely like 'care de' something. He missed the last syllables, but was fairly sure that it was some kind of curse. 

"This Morgan like me can count in two languages, which is more can be said for you English," Bran said, almost prissily as he folded his hands over one knee, perched as he was on the edge of a plastic chair. 

"Sure you can. Welsh and Bad English."

"You're looking for a tanning, aren't you?" Bran smoothed his blue trousers down and shrugged. "Want me to take you over my knee and spank you?" 

Will choked on the mouthful of cherryade he'd just swigged, and the too-bright liquid spurted out of his nose, making his vision swim for a second. "Eh- I'll just- Um- Postpone that invitation, if you don't mind." 

"Right you are," Bran said jovially, the English colloquialism sounding thick with Bran's sing-song accent. 

Will watched as Bran stood up a little too quickly, tossing Will an amiable glance and ambling away without another word. Will got the sinking feeling he might have to tone down the side of himself 'too close to the world of man', if this ridiculous behaviour around Bran continued. He had another two years of Uni left. Why Bran had chosen the same course and Uni as him was a fact that was still eluding Will, and he still had a faint feeling that meeting Bran and Jane at the _same _Uni and on the _same _course was due to more than a little contrivance on one absent Merriman Lyon's part. The Dark still had its lingering effects on the world. It stood to perfectly good reason that the Light's effects would continue to affect the world too. 

Whatever the reason, the fact remained that two years of Uni with Bran stretched ahead of him, and he had to be careful with this newly realised (but not new, Will's stomach unhappily reminded him) feeling.

"Penny for your thoughts." 

Will looked up, shaken out of his thoughts by the sombre female voice. "They're only worth one penny?" 

Jane smothered a high-pitched giggle with the back of her hand, sitting gingerly down on a chair, hitching her knee-length tartan skirt so it didn't get caught in the chair legs. "Okay. A million pounds for all your thoughts." 

"Better." Will smiled faintly, a ghost of a smile. "I was just thinking how everyone was having fun, and I'm the sad gooseberry sat out on the side playing with my toys." He punctuated this statement 

"Wallflower." 

"Eh?" Will scratched his head. "Did you _really_ fall over and hit your head in doing so? 'Cause I just thought you said wallflower."

"I did. Your age is showing itself, Master Stanton. Wallflower is the current hip and trendy name for gooseberry."

"Eh," Will said again, grunting as Jane laughed. "At least I didn't say goosegog."  
  
"Very valid point." Jane fixed him with a sombre look. "Nice way of avoiding the subject, though."

"Oh. My loneliness or my thoughts?"

"Either."

"Well, I was also kind of wondering how come you and Bran and I all managed to pick the same course and uni. I've always been nuts about anthropology, if you remember-"

"Yes, Will Stanton, I remember Cornwall." Jane pulled a small face at Will, and Will stuck his tongue out back at her.

"And anyone would be insane not to want to get out of Buckinghamshire…" 

"Of course," Jane said, her voice light. "Everyone knows that."

"Are you mocking me?"

"_Me?_ Mock? How _dare _you suggest such a thing!"

"Ha, ha. So how _did_ you decide what to put down on your UCAS form?" 

Jane gave a small shrug. "Guess it was Gumerry's influence. The last thing he bought me before he secluded himself god knows where to do more of his ruddy research was a set of books, and they really got me interested in Anthropology… As for the uni…" She shrugged again. "I'm sure I heard someone somewhere say that Exeter was really good for Anthro- you know _what_? I really thing it may have been Gumerry too. How strange!" 

"Very strange," Will agreed, his suspicions more than confirmed. "Not regretting your choice, though?"

"Well, mum's been going on a bit at home about how she doesn't think Anthropology is very applicable to the working world. She'd be happier if I'd made a definite career choice, I'm sure, but- Eh, what _is _this, anyway?" 

Will blinked as Jane's eyes narrowed. The Drew girl pushed a pile of presents to one side, and pulled out a large unopened box. "An unopened present! How strange! You must have missed it under the mess of the other presents." 

Jane pushed the large box over the table to Will. Will took it, and something within him thrilled. His stomach seemed suddenly empty. Will let one finger trace over the innocent-seeming box. He couldn't sense any trace of magic at all. 

"Aren't you going to open it?" 

Will looked up, his mouth hanging partly open, and clamped his lips together. There was no good reason that he could use to explain _not_ opening it, except for "_gosh, I really don't want to open this because it was given to me by a witch girl who - because I'm an old one and can do magic - wants me dead because I wouldn't send her back into the past like she asked_" and Will _really_ didn't want to have to even _think_ of the repercussions of saying that. Instead, he let his hands fall to the openings. Untying the bright ribbons, Will took his time opening the box. Sliding the lid up and off, Jane peered over his shoulder as he sifted through the tissue paper. Laying the flimsy coloured paper aside, he stared at the contents within. 

A single cloth drawstring pouch, a single glove and a small envelope. 

Will lifted up the envelope first, suddenly unnerved by the weird collection of items. 

"Weird," Jane murmured. "Who'd you get this lot off?" 

"Huh?" Will looked up, almost startled by her presence. He shook his head as if to shake away a heavy cloud of suspicion. "Um, Maggie Barnes. She used to have this huge thing for Max. She always was a bit… _gone_ in the head, if you get what I mean." 

"Ah," Jane replied, obviously at a loss of what to say. "Aren't you going to open the card?" 

"Maybe later," Will commented, surreptitiously sliding it into his pocket. "Right now I'm going out to dance, if you'd care to join me."

Jane happily got to her feet, holding out her hands. "Yeah, who needs two feet anyway," she joked. 

Will glared and dragged the laughing girl out onto the floor. 

----- 

Stephen excused himself after finishing a third dance with his mother, and headed over to the tables to sit down. Picking up a glass of the non-alcoholic punch on the drinks table, he sat down and watched the merry making. Mary was still embarrassing herself with the uptight older Drew boy, his mother and father were dancing together and looking perfect, the twins were hand jiving in the corner while Max looked on in amusement. Barney Drew was dancing with one of the prettier cousins, the girls dancing with their uncles, and James was haunting the food table. Will was dancing with the Drew girl, for the second time.

That was the dance arrangement he was most interested in. He watched Will and Jane dance, Will's steps polished as if they were rehearsed except for the small adjustments in the pattern he made to accommodate Jane's mistakes. She looked happy as they span around the floor, Will merely looked amused at something entirely different. 

Leaning back in the chair, Stephen let his thoughts wander. _Jane probably has a crush on him_, Stephen thought languidly, watching his youngest sibling. _Unreciprocated from what I know of Will, though. Poor girl. Perhaps I'd better warn her_. He resisted the urge to laugh out loud at his own thoughts. Will was eighteen, old enough to make his own mistakes, but still Stephen found it hard to let go. Harder even than any of his other brothers and sisters. Something about Will brought out his protective instincts.  
  
Stephen let his gaze drift back to the dance floor, watching Will from his vantage point. Will seemed entirely preoccupied now, his body moving through the steps on his own. Stephen let his gaze flicker to the corner, where Bran Davies stood. Stephen blinked and looked away, not wanting to be caught staring. Bran was watching Will and Jane with an emotion akin to jealousy on his pale face. Letting his gaze flicker up again, Stephen watched, his mouth dry, as Will's gaze flickered up and met Bran's own. Instantly Will looked away, his eyes suddenly intensely focussed on nothing, and Bran looked away too. The Welsh boy looked flustered, his arms folded as his amber gaze swept the floor rapidly. _Thinking, then_, Stephen realised. _Thinking about my brother_.

The thought unnerved him, and Stephen looked back across to Will. A frown and a small blush decorated his brother's face. _Interesting, but what could it mean…?_ A hundred noticed looks and touches and encounters between the two that Stephen had seen locked together in his mind into one complete jigsaw puzzle. He laughed out loud at the realisation. It wasn't just their teenage hormones being teenage hormones. This was a full-on, reciprocated, unacknowledged, probably un-talked about, crush. The unease Stephen felt at the small attraction between them he'd noticed yesterday eased a little. He looked across to his parents again. They would probably be a little shocked that their youngest boy played for a different team, as the cliché went, but they'd get over it. Homophobes the Stantons weren't. Strange, yes. But deranged, no. 

----- 

Will ran towards the house, full pelt. There weren't any toilets in the barn, so this was the perfect excuse. He only hoped James was finished already so he could have a small bit of peace. He met James as he entered the door, and his brother gave him a knowing look and the keys to the door. Will muttered his thanks, as if he was desperate for the toilet, and legged it inside as fast as he could. 

Putting the toilet seat down, Will sat down on the cool porcelain surface and pulled the envelope out from his pocket. He didn't move to turn on the light switch; the pale moonlight filtering through the small window gave him light enough to see. He held onto the envelope for a long moment, distracted slightly by the telltale crossed circle burn on his left arm. Hoping he'd hitched his sleeve up on his run to the house, Will covered his burn and turned his attention fully on the envelope. 

Will realised his hands were shaking, and he forced them to still. His taut fingers hovered at the opening before he ripped open the envelope. A single card fluttered out. He picked it up from the floor and lifted it up to the moonlight. 

"_A hint and a help, from the hindrance_." 

Will's brow furrowed as he stared at it, uncomprehendingly. Maggie herself must be the hindrance, but of the small pouch and the glove, which was the help and which was the hint? And could he really trust for either of these to be genuine? 

_Yes_, whispered his Gramarye knowledge. _Even agents of the Dark are honest, when they want something from you that desperately_._ Twisting honesty to an evil use is their favourite technique_. 

Will pocketed the envelope, and lifted the toilet seat back up again. Unbolting the toilet, Will headed outside and locked the door again. Running back up the hill, he headed into the barn and towards the table with the box. No one else was sat there, and Will managed to pull out the glove and pouch before the room trembled before him. 

His skin prickled at the sensation, and Will looked around in horror. No one else had reacted at all to the trembling. He stepped backwards, mouth dropped open, and was faintly aware that Stephen was suddenly at his side; clutching his elbow. 

"_Will, what's wrong? What's wrong, Will?_" 

Will barely heard the words. His scalp prickled, his magic blared, and everything warned at once_ the end is nigh_. 

_But it can't_, Will screamed back silently against the threatening doom, _the end is nowhere near._

As if his words were the answer, his magical awareness stopped vying for his attention. Stunned, Will twisted in Stephen's grasp to stare up at his brother. 

"Will, are you all right?" 

Will swallowed hard at the question. "Y-yeah, fine. Someone walked over my grave, is all."

"Hm." Stephen pursed his lips together. "I don't think I believe you." 

Will stared back wordlessly, and then couldn't say anymore. The floor trembled, this time physically. The music stopped and frightened shrieks filled the air as everything went totally and completely dark. Will took the opportunity to outstretch himself, and _feel_. Something Dark was surrounding the barn, but it was _impossible_, the Dark had been driven back, it had been pushed out of time, and- 

_"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE, OLD ONE. YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THIS_." 

The lights flickered back on. Lining the hall was an army of dark robed figures, all with cowls and hoods covering their faces. The words thudded painfully through the air. The figures stepped forwards in unison, and everyone else present huddled together. Will moved as Stephen herded him towards the others. 

"Who are you and what do you want!" Roger Stanton's voice rang out firmly. 

"WE ARE INEVITABLE." One of the cowled figures stepped forwards and threw off his hood. 

"Mr. Mitohin!" Alice Stanton gasped in recognition. 

"Mitohin. What the hell's going on?" 

Stephen winced as his father stepped forwards, and out of the corner of his eye saw Bran step up to flank Will's other side silently. He inclined his head to look at Bran, who gave him a fierce look in return. Stephen almost reeled from the intensity of Bran's protective glance, and then settled. He and Bran were both set on keeping Will safe, then. 

"I've come for the Old One," Mr. Mitohin intoned, his voice low but so crystal clear it cut through the air, tearing it into ribbons. 

"Speak English, man," Roger returned, his voice edgy as he realised he had no control over the situation. Stephen watched as his father and uncles started surrounding the girls of the party. 

"YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, OLD ONE. SURRENDER, OR WE KILL ALL YOUR FAMILY." Mitohin's voice was even lower than before, more the timbre of the Dark Rider he embodied while on his steed. 

Stephen felt Will tense slightly under his grip, but he didn't let go. Will looked up to stare helplessly at Stephen, and Stephen stared flatly back. 

"ADVANCE, DARK!" Mitohin commanded. The shrouded figures stepped forwards and held up one arm each. Stephen couldn't look away as dark energy coursed through the air towards him, the smell of it burning on the air. His eyelids flickered, as if to protect his eyes, and then light blazed forwards, surrounding them and blocking out the black-robed men. Stephen looked down to Will, trying to ascertain whether this light was due to him, certainty starting to course through his blood that this was the case despite the lack of evidence from Will. His brother was looking straight at Mitohin with hatred, that much was for sure, but so was every other male in the group, and many of the females too. 

"SO, YOU CAN TAKE HALF OUR POWER, WATCHMAN OF THE LIGHT. BUT CAN YOU TAKE ALL OF IT?" 

Stephen watched in horror as the figures lifted up their other arms, the word _watchman_ filtering through his brain. The darkness intensified against the light barrier. Will strained in his arms, and Stephen held on for dear life, but it wasn't enough. Will slumped in his arms, and instantly Bran was right there too, helping hold Will up so that the others would not notice that Will could barely stand on his own. His face was strained as if he had no energy left at all. The light barrier flickered and fell dead. Mitohin lifted up one hand, and the Dark attacks stopped too. 

Mitohin's voice changed again, to that of the posh man they'd known before. "Couldn't cope, could you watcher? All alone, and you can't cope. I could kill any of your family, and you'd be powerless to stop me. For example, I remember your sister Mary was quite pretty. Still is, from what I see. A pity she will die, then." Mitohin lifted up his arm. Black energy lanced through the air. Roger Stanton pelted forwards, but too late. His eyes widened in horror as the energy crackled through the air towards his youngest daughter. 

"NO!" 

Will went taut again, and a white barrier surrounded Mary, protecting the shocked girl. His eyes, the colour of metal, stared at Mitohin in fury. Mitohin just sneered, then stumbled forwards a step. Stephen watched in amazement as Maggie Barnes stood where Mitohin had just been, cheery face plastered with a desperate expression, fear of the repercussions of her actions plain on her face. 

"THE POUCH CONTAINS YOUR HELP, WATCHER!" Maggie managed to shriek, before Mitohin turned and brought his arm down across her face. The harsh slap filled the air as Maggie slumped to the ground, unconscious. Stephen and Bran looked to Will, who managed to hold out his hand containing the pouch and glove before unconsciousness claimed him also. The glove and pouch dropped to the floor and Bran hurriedly dropped to his feet to pick them up while Stephen helped keep Will upright. 

Mitohin opened his mouth to command an order, then froze as he saw Bran with the pouch. That hesitation was enough for Bran, as the Welsh albino opened the pouch, dug his fingers into whatever was its contents, and flung his hand forwards. Stephen saw what looked like fine sand swirl outwards from Bran's fingers and heard Mitohin's scream of rage before a heavy pulsing feeling started in his brain, thudding painfully. In his hazed state, Stephen felt Will slip from his grasp, but didn't care, as darkness completely engulfed him and he remembered nothing more. 

----- 

To be continued… 

-----

Trivia: 

*** "Morgan like you." *** This is an English insult used against the Welsh to describe a Welshman. Similarly, an insult in Wales is to be called "English."

***Mizzy*** Lancashire dialect word for mist. ^^;; 

***UCAS*** University and College Admission Service. It's the company students go through to apply to universities in Britain. Most annoying thing about it? The form is incomprehensible, the instructions long and bizarre, and the application fee £15. That's about the same cost as you can get the whole DIR sequence for in Waterstones.

***bach*** You should know this one. Literally it means "little" or "small", but usually used as a term of endearment or suchlike. Here's the trivia part - a toilet in Welsh is "tŷ bach", or, literally, "small house."

***My hen laid an egg in the top of the tree*** The first line in the Welsh national anthem, according to thousands of Welsh children throughout the country. Of course it's actually "Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi", but trust me when I say that it sounds reeealllly close to the original.


	3. The Time Has Come

**The Dust of Time

* * *

**

_Summary: _Will struggles with his conscience, while struggling with the Darkest threat he's come up against so far - his own family's memories. Will/Bran Slash.

_Disclaimer: _"The Dark is Rising Sequence" does not belong to me, it belongs to Susan Cooper, the amazing Goddess that she is. This is written by a fan, for the fans, and no money has exchanged hands what-so-ever.

_Author's Notes_: Here's your... yearly update! Um... yeah. This chapter was just a nightmare to write, and I finished it at... 5:31 am today. Gahhhh... It's starting to get _light_ again!

* * *

Part Three - "The Time Has Come."

* * *

Coldness, and hardness, against his face. Light seared through his closed eyelids, painting a sky of pink nothingness against his vision. His entire body aching, Will pushed his palms flat against the cold, hard surface his face was pushed unmercifully against and thrust his body back.

Blinking furiously as he sat upright, completely disorientated, Will took a few seconds to get his bearings. Shaking his head in consternation, he stood up, one hand on the mantle to steady himself. He was in the house, and by the warm light spilling in through the cold window he'd woken up against, it was daytime.

Reaching out all his senses, Will let himself just _feel_, listening acutely to his instincts. Something bristled within him, and his gaze shot to the window. No snow lay on the ground. Frowning, Will looked up at the sky, fluffy clouds tinged with dark, and his stomach fell.

Awareness creeping into his mind, bellowing the truth with a clarity that stirred him into instant action, Will skidded into the kitchen. There, at the window, he could see his mother heading towards the chicken shed in her heavy overcoat. Swallowing, he didn't wait for the sound he knew was coming and pushed the door open brusquely, surveying the scene before him with an outward impassiveness while inwardly his thoughts chattered and spun without direction.

"Surprise?" Will murmured ironically, folding his arms and leaning against the door as his gaze clinically swept over his siblings and friends, gaging their reactions. Most seemed cheerfully oblivious, except for four. Barney Drew looked a little unsettled, but that was to be expected. Bran was pretending to be jovial, but Will knew when he was hiding something. Stephen was looking a bit startled, as if he'd only just figured out what had happened but couldn't believe it. The other reaction Will noted and catalogued for reference was Simon Drew's. The normally reserved boy wasn't looking shocked or surprise, but he was standing in a different place to last time; almost shielding Barney from him with his body.

Stephen and Bran remembering what had happened, that was almost to be expected. Somehow time had been rewound, probably due to that mysterious dust that Will resolved to examine as soon as possible, and as Stephen had been in contact with him, and Bran had thrown the dust, they were the most likely candidates to not be affected. Simon had evaded a forgetting once before, in the caravan of a lesser being of the Dark who craved to be a master, but that could be fixed with a quiet moment alone with him. Barney, as a Seer, may not remember, but would sense a difference.

Not wanting to make the others suspicious, Will pulled his face into a grin that almost looked authentic. "Mary!"

The corresponding sister, closest to him, put out an ice cold hand and ruffled his hair.

Will endured the physical reminder of his position in the Stanton household as the youngest, and followed the script, not wanting to derive from events until he could be sure why and exactly how it was happening. "I thought you weren't due home until the twenty-third!"

"Yeah, that's what we wanted you to think," Mary replied with a smug grin. "And as you can see, it's not just us."

"Hi, Will," Bran greeted, his voice lighter than it was before, his sing-song accent more pronounced with the less aggressive tone, his eyes shining over the top of his sunglasses.

"Aren't you going to let us in?" Barbara whined, looking like she was turning blue.

"Naw, he's forgotten all his manners," Max broke in, rolling his eyes at his youngest brother's reaction.

The sound of the insult kicked Will's body into action. He stepped aside to let his family and friends pile in, helping his father and mother with all the extra luggage that accompanied the hectic brood of people.

Stephen was the last to pile into the small Stanton household, and grabbed Will by the elbow to grab him in a crushing hug of welcome. "Happy Birthday, Old One," he said meaningfully, looking at Will hard. Will met his gaze and pointed words with an almost arrogant tilt of his head.

"Yeah, he's a rather old nineteen, too," Barbara chipped in, dropping an amiable kiss on Will's cheek as they all tried to crowd into the kitchen and living room.

Will smiled weakly. "I can't believe you're all here! It's the best birthday present ever!"

"Is to make up for that poxy eighteenth birthday you had," James explained, his round face amiable. "Can't have been much fun with only you, mum, dad and a whole load of poxy chickens."

"It was fun enough, Mr. I Spent My Birthday With My Very First Hangover," Alice Stanton replied with a very shrewd look at a now blushing James, shrugging off the overly-large overcoat and hanging it on a peg by the door. "Anyway, Will, this took quite a bit of organisation, but you'd better get on in and greet your friends properly, as your brothers and sisters will all be here till New Year, but Bran and the Drews can only stay till the twenty-third."

Will nodded, pushed past Max, Barbara and Paul, all looking almost as if they'd never left, and dived into the living room.

Jane was standing with Simon and Barney, looking gently around their house with a tentative smile, and looking apologetic. She moved over to Will as he appeared in the doorway, and indicated Barney and Simon with a toss of her head. Simon was almost bristling, and Barney was looking more than a little confused.

"Sorry, this was the only way I could come, and I didn't want to miss your nineteenth," Jane said. Will grinned at her.

Will said, "No problem. Besides, this'll be just like old times, right?"

Barney smiled at him. "Super house," he enthused. "Although I kind of feel like I've been here before."

"_Very_ strange," Simon said, almost coldly.

Jane elbowed him darkly. "Si, be _polite_. The Stantons are putting us up for a few days, politeness is the very _least_ you could practise."

"Nah, Jane, don't worry about it," Will said dismissively, looking across slowly at the window seat. Bran was indolently lounging there.

"Is this your seat?" Bran asked, his voice a curious combination of concern and a familiar arrogance.

"Yes," Will said flatly, trying to sound stern.

"Ah." Bran relaxed, folding his arms and dropping his rucksack to the floor. Bran caught Will's happy glance and suddenly reached forwards to pull Will's abandoned glass of orange juice off the mantelpiece; taking a defiant sip of the juice. "I guess this is your drink too."

Will gave Bran his patented death-glare. Bran impudently grinned at him before placing the glass back on the mantelpiece. Getting to his feet, Bran crossed over to where Will stood and grabbed his friend in a hug.

"You could have told me you were involved in something dodgy, you know," Bran whispered so only Will could hear.

"Later," Will whispered. "I promise I'll explain."

A giggle in the corner, prompted him to pull away from Bran to see Mary sniggering in the doorway. Behind her, a kind of convoy had been set up with the Stantons in the kitchen; bags and cases were being brought in and were being stacked neatly under the table and in the corners.

Will's gaze jerked up to meet his parents' happy gazes, and they stood arm in arm in the doorway. His siblings and friends, crammed into the small living room, filled Will only now with horror. He was exposing them all to danger. He had to figure this out, fast, and...

His father smiled at him and Will forced himself to grin back, feeling sick.

"Happy birthday, Will," his father said, indicating his sons and daughters with a spread of his arm, looking pleased that Will was so apparently happy. Will felt inwardly awful. As soon as he had this figured out, he had to leave, and the sooner the better.

* * *

Will listened patiently to James explaining his duties in his choir for, unbeknownst to his cheerful round-faced older brother, the second time, wondering when he could get away and not seem too rude about it. Thankfully Stephen seemed to be just as anxious. As James babbled himself into a corner, Stephen slid quietly into the room.

"Will," Stephen said, just as James was going to launch into the anti-Bach spiel Will had hated the first time around, "could you give me a hand with the Li-Los for your room?"

"Aw, c'mon, Steve, it's his _birth_day," James protested sullenly.

"Argue with Paul about Bach," Stephen countered back.

"It's fine," Will said. "I'm not nineteen until tomorrow." He smiled in thanks at James, who nodded back, and then he deliberately walked over to where Bran was brooding quietly in the corner. "Bran, could you help too?"

Startled, Bran nodded, and followed Will out of the cramped living room. They made a strange procession, climbing with the rolled up rubber mats up the thin, long stairs, and when they reached the attic room, Will closed the door and folded his arms, looking at the two of them.

"So?" Will said pointedly, looking at his older brother challengingly. Stephen forced his sullen expression into a neutral one, while Bran looked nervously between the two siblings as he pocketed his sunglasses.

"So what?" Stephen countered.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" Will said, going for the direct approach.

Stephen looked pointedly at Bran, who shifted, uncomfortable. "Don't you think it's a rather private thing?"

Bran got to his feet from where he'd sat unrolling one of the inflatable mattresses, and headed for the door. "I'll go," he said quickly.

"No, you don't," Will said briefly, putting one hand on Bran's chest to stop him moving. Bran's eyes widened, almost fearfully, and Will held that tremulous gaze as best as he could. "Stephen remembers what happened, too."

"That dust did something, didn't it?" Bran asked, reassured, stepping back and leaning against the radiator. "Reset time, or something."

"Not entirely," Will said. "I suspect it just, sort of, got a little repeated. Time isn't as linear as you'd think."

Bran looked confused.

"What are you?"

Will winced at Stephen's direction question, and kept his gaze on the worn carpet, unwilling to look up and see the horror deep in his eldest sibling's eyes. "Watchman of the light. Watcher. Old One. All the stories mum and dad used to tell you before I was born."

Stephen regarded his youngest brother appraisingly, taking in Will's appearance as if he'd never seen him before. Somehow, the view surprised him. He'd always remembered Will as a stocky, round-faced boy of twelve, smiling up at the world through a heavy slanted curtain of brown hair, with eyes the cheerful colours of the sea. Now...

_I don't know that man_, Stephen realised. He didn't know the dangerous, slender young man, clad from foot to toe in threatening black, arms folded over his chest, a dangerous glint in his blue-green eyes. His eyes were still the colour of the sea, but now more of the hint of storms and thunder and lightning.

"Where did Will go?" Stephen asked, his voice almost plaintive, not meaning the question in its literal sense.

"I'm still here," Will said. "I promise." He smirked, inwardly. "Well, some of me, anyway."

"Have you always been this bloody vague, Stanton?"

Will looked sharply across at Bran, who was looking confused and hurt and betrayed.

"Oh, that's never changed," Stephen assured Bran softly. "To be honest, I'd think you were making this up, Will, if- What did happen yesterday, anyway?"

"I think the whole world got shot to hell," Will said candidly, self-deprecatingly. "And I wish I knew why, how. The Dark had been banished, to out of time, and all the Old Ones of the Light followed, masters and makers alike." His voice held an almost tangible taste of longing.

"I thought that chap - Mitothin - called you an Old One? So how can all of them-" Bran questioned.

"All but one," Will said, correcting his words softly, the words bitter-sweet. "Five shall return and One go alone."

"Huh?"

"An old poem," Will said dismissively. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that with that- whatever it was that Maggie gave me - somehow made events repeat, giving me time to figure out what I'd obviously missed, because, to be absolutely candid, this whole thing is-" He struggled for the word. "I want to say impossible, but it's happening."

"It's inconceivable," Bran said, with a sudden smirk. Stephen let out a short laugh. Will looked between the two of them with a confused look.

"Never read Morgenstern, then," Bran said, shaking his head. "Honestly."

Almost speechless, Will spluttered, looking between them as if they'd gone mad. "What are you two _on_ about?"

"Look, Will," Stephen said, levelly, the smile leaving his face. "This thing is freaking me out. My youngest brother is some kind of super-powered watchman, against some dark cloaked maniacs who want to kill us all. I know that you will try your best to protect us, but you're not enough, and if time repeats again- and again- We need to stop it. And I haven't got a single bloody clue as how to go about it!"

"Join the bloody club," Will snapped back, massaging his temples with his fingers, his forehead creased with worry. Then he shook his head, lowering his hands, as if just realising what he'd done. His face softened in apology. "Oh, Steve, I'm sorry." He sat with a thump on his bed, the springs creaking in rebellion at the sudden intrusion. "It just gets a little too much, sometimes."

"I'd bet," Bran said, a small note of humour in his melodic voice. Then, suddenly unsure, he shifted, staring down at his feet. "H-have you always- I mean-"

Will sighed, copying Bran by looking down, staring at his own interlocked fingers, stark against his legs. "When I was eleven." He could feel Stephen's glare, calculating but surprised. "I came into my- _abilities_ then. When the snow fell down so hard. For a few days, nothing made any sense, and then the Others, before they left, gave me the knowledge. We fought a long hard battle that took a good long couple of years, the Dark was pushed down, the other Old Ones left, and they left me behind to Watch." He exhaled hard. "At least, that's what I've always thought."

"This is going to take some getting used to," Stephen said, his voice thin. Will looked up at him, wincing, thinking he was going to see the same expression as had been on Stephen's face when he told him the truth the first time around.

Will smiled tightly. "I rather suspect that we may have all the time in the world to figure it out."

"We'll keep looping until-" Stephen's face froze, then relaxed. "Not aging until we find out, wow. We could tell the others and live forever."

"There's an idea," Bran said, his voice drifting out into the atmosphere.

"Oh, don't tempt me." Will's voice held a clear note of longing in it. He was looking out of the window, but both Bran and Stephen had the feeling that he was looking beyond the landscape to something far away. "You have no idea how many times I wanted to- _needed _to, but..." He trailed off, despondent, twisting his hands before lifting his chin almost defiantly, trying to explain what he meant. "Imagine eternity, trapped with the same people. Never being able to go far before _bam!_, you're back with the same people. Eventually they would get resentful. Mary would fume at the fact she could never marry. People would get bored, kill. And then, _bam!_ back to the beginning..."

"Ordinary people weren't designed to live forever," Stephen suggest wryly. "I guess I see what you mean."

"So why don't you just come out with it and tell them? Tell your family. I can see why you don't go public to the world, you'd be dissected or something awful or exploited." Bran's face was pale, he looked almost sick with the idea.

"You have to understand, Bran. I cannot die. I can come close to something like it, but-" Will shook his head, heavily. "Everyone I know is going to- to-"

"Die?" Bran's voice was mocking. "Everyone dies, _bachgen_. Except maybe for you." His lips twisted, as if contemplating that and finding it ironic. "Although explaining quite why you aren't dying could be an issue, I suppose."

"And the not growing up as fast as I should issue," Will muttered darkly.

Stephen laughed, and the other two looked at him quizzically. "Sorry. I was just thinking about siphoning off some of your blood and selling it as an anti-aging liquid."

Will's lips twisted into a semi-smile, and Bran barked in laughter. The pale Welsh boy picked up one of the Li-los and bent down to attach the pump, knowing the trick now of how to do it.

"Do you even have blood? You being not human and all," Bran said, as if the question had just struck him. It probably had.

"Don't be ridiculous," Stephen scoffed, before pausing to check himself. "Uh, do you?"

"Of course I do," Will said, although from the two staring at him, worry set in. Frowning, he crossed to the bedside cabinet, rummaged in a drawer, and pulled out a small penknife, which he touched as if recalling a distant memory. He looked at the two, reluctantly, and then paled, as if feeling sick. Pulling a face, he flicked out the blade, and looked away as he put it to his hand.

It was if the entire room was holding its breath, waiting for the outcome.

"I can't look," a voice said thinly. Will looked back to see Stephen had covered his eyes, and laughed despite himself.

"A big Navy man like you, scared of blood?" Will mocked. Bran looked at him reprovingly.

"He didn't do it, don't worry," Bran said, getting up briskly as Stephen uncovered his eyes. He walked over to Will, and quickly and efficiently took hold of the penknife, his wrist dipping gracefully towards Will's hand.

"OW!"

"He bleeds," Bran said primly, dropping the penknife simply into Will's other hands, and twisting on his heel to go back to the Li-Lo, stuck in its semi state of inflation.

Will glowered sourly at Bran as he reached for a tissue from the box on the bedside cabinet to put on the surprisingly small cut, which was steadily spurting blood onto his hand.

Bran said, changing the topic, "Maggie gave you that dust stuff, didn't she? Oughtn't she be here in the morning and we can question her?"

"Good thing one of us has a brain here," Will said with a small engimatic smile as he sank onto the edge of his bed.

"Oy!" Stephen protested automatically. A nerve in his jaw twitched, awkwardly. "Maggie," he started, his voice a little stiff, "what _is_ she?"

Inhaling slowly, Will shrugged as he concentrated on keeping pressure on the cut. "I thought she was just a Witch-girl, an agent of the Dark, but she claims she's from the past. She could be a witch from the past, I suppose."

"A _witch_?"

Will looked at him dryly. "After this last hour, you're being incredulous about the existence of _witch_?"

"Well, I-" Stephen managed eloquently.

"Witches allowed themselves to be documented in history, is all," Will explained casually. Bran, having finished inflating the yellow Li-Lo, put it in place and then sat down on it cross-legged. Will smiled cat-like and quick at Bran's cocked eyebrow, and tried not to think how graceful Bran managed to make his posture, all legs and elegance and...

"Will?"

Will's eyes widened, and he looked up at Stephen's prompting. He could feel the blush rush onto his cheeks, and by the sudden twinkle in Stephen's eyes, Will could tell he was going to get some ribbing from his older brother later. "Sorry. Um, Old Ones aren't mentioned in history much. And they exist. So doesn't it stand to reason that witches are _more_ likely to exist? The more records in existance, the more sightings there must have been. There are _some_ Old Ones mentioned in history books, but not many occasions, and there are _thousands_ of us."

His tone took a sudden, melancholic twang, and Will looked at the wall as if he could see through it.

"You can come in, you know," Will said suddenly, inexplicably, loudly.

Bran and Stephen exchanged confused looks, until the door opened. Light spilled through from the hallway, silhouetting Simon Drew in the doorway. Simon had his arms crossed strictly across his chest.

"Freak," Simon spluttered out, loud and stridently. "I can't believe-"

Bran got roughly to his feet, but his protective gesture wasn't needed. They never found out what Simon couldn't believe, as the serious boy suddenly stiffened, and his eyes glazed over. His arms fell uselessly to his sides.

Silence permeated the room so thoroughly that Bran felt his limbs were much heavier than normal and his movements sluggish. He turned, slowly, and it felt like his neck was cramping, to see Will - stood upright - arm outstretched - fingers splayed apart, as if his hand could prevent anything, like it was a five digit shield.

"Forget," Will whispered, "forget." In that moment he looked infinitely sadder, infinitely older, infinitely full of hatred and suffering and anguish and pain and resignation to a fate. "You only came to see if we needed assistance."

Will's voice was low, almost musical, and very soothing. Simon Drew blinked once, his eyelashes long on his pale cheeks. Will lowered his hand, regret playing openly across his whole stance.

A flicker of something crossed Simon's face, and he grinned slowly at them. "Jane sent me up to see if you needed some assistance, but I see you've got it all under control. Need anything sending up?"

"No," Will said tersely, blankly. "We'll be down in a few minutes."

"Sure," Simon said, smiling again and turning away to go downstairs. The door fell shut with a click.

"Okay, what did you just do?" Bran demanded, hands akimbo, his golden eyes piercing into Will accusingly.

Will looked at him, forlorn. "Did what I had to do," he said, his face drawn.

"Are _you_ all right?" Stephen said. "You look... awful!"

"Thanks!" Will grinned cheekily at Stephen as his older brother took umbrage at Will's sarcasm. "No, making someone forget, it takes... it doesn't just take physical strength, but... mental strength too. I'll be a little _more_ vague for the next couple of hours than usual."

"What's new there?" Stephen quipped.

Bran's mouth worked silently for a moment, and Will looked tiredly at him. "What?"

He struggled to reply, but eventually found the words. "Will, have you ever... have you ever done that to me? Made me forget?"

Wary, Will looked at him. "Why do you ask?"

Bran twisted his hands, almost wretchedly. "It's just... both the times you visited me... It was a blur. A complete blur. I remember being happier than I'd ever been, and even at the sad times, still reassured, but I don't..." His face screwed up a little. "Is that just because we were younger? I haven't felt like it at uni."

"Have I ever done that to you?" Will repeated the question softly, and his blue-green eyes flickered across the carpet, as if trying to remember. "No." His face stilled, but his eyes moved up, to meet with Bran's own, clearly and strongly and unwavering. "Never."

Bran exhaled, as if he'd been holding in a breath.

"What about me?" Stephen asked, his voice breathless and tight.

Will looked at Stephen, and then looked away, hanging his head and staring at some fascinating imaginary point on the carpet. "I'm sorry," he said eventually. Will didn't look up, couldn't bear to look at Stephen.

"Why?" Stephen's voice was bitter and small.

"The Old Ones relayed a message through you," Will said. "Seven years ago. It wasn't safe for you to remember. And I- I told you." An expression of pure pain shifted across Will's face, replaced instantly by one of blank determination.

"I didn't take it well," Stephen realised.

"Understatement of my life," Will said, a bitter irony deepening his words. He looked up, but still not at Stephen. "The way you looked at me. I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear making you forget, either. I-" He then looked up at Stephen, hard. "It was only the once. I made Mary forget once, when she was captured briefly by Mitothin. Believe me," he said quickly, "no one feels worse about that than I." Even his words were old now, of an old man, but he could not stop them. Now they knew this about him, even more of his true self came out. "Paul, Robin and dad once, as well. There was a creature. At church." He shook himself, like trying to shake away a nightmare. "Forgetting... Even making Simon forget there... It takes too much, Steve, it takes everything from inside me and makes it _hurt_. It hurt bad enough for Simon, and I don't... care for him much."

"So the more you care about someone, the more it hurts to do it?" Stephen asked.

"Yes."

"Holy Jesus on a pogo stick," was Bran's helpful offering.

Will looked at him strangely, and Bran quirked a grin at him, and Stephen started to laugh. Will reluctantly started to laugh, too.

"What a guy has to do to break the mood," Bran said, leaning against the window sill.

"If your da heard you say that..." Will said, leaving the threat unfinished.

Bran looked at him coolly. "Right back at you, oh, ancient one."

"Guess we'd better go down," Will said, although he didn't sound very enthusiastic about it.

"Hmm, you make that sound like _so_ much fun," Stephen remarked dourly.

"Yeah," Will said, "because hearing Mary whitter on about the interns that groped her at the Buckinghamshire Beagle makes me feel _so_ happy about her working conditions, and Barbara's secretary hijinks are just _fabulous_, and Robin and James and Paul are having the musical times of their life, which I guess are _lovely_ but when you don't get to _hear_ anything they're doing, it's annoying! Just, _oh, Will, you _should_ have heard the ornamentals I pulled off on so-and-so_, and _there's this wonderful passage on this new piece we're recording, you'd love it, Will_, and hearing Mum prattle on about where Gwen could be..."

"Don't forget Max's adventure buying those second hand sable brushes while still getting back in time to sell his pigs at market," Bran chimed in.

"Or the _hilarious_ exam results Paul sometimes reads in the music written papers," Stephen finished morosely. "You're right, there really _are_ downsides to this time repeating business."

"Look at it this way," Will said cheerfully, "at least now you know the _truth_."

He bounded out of the door as quickly as he could before either of the two could reach him and smack him.

* * *

Will looked down at the cocoa in his hands, and blew on it. His mug of cocoa had been a little too sweet the first time, and was the same this time round. No matter what the scientists said about time travel and chaos theory, somethings were just _destined_ to stay the same.

"So how are you?" Barney asked politely after some time of talking had passed, blowing cautiously on his own cocoa.

"I'm fine," Will said with a shrug, trying to remember what he'd said last time. He was a little more distracted by Bran this time round, as he'd sat in a slightly different place, and his skin was alight with the golden flames of the fireplace. He looked warm and alive and almost _vibrant_ with knowledge. Will's skin sang with remembrance of what it was like to be with others of his own kind, others not of the human world.

"Looks like it's going to snow," Bran said, with a small edge to his voice as he looked at Will, amused and unaware of the reason for Will's distraction. Will blinked violently, and looked up at the face of his best friend.

"Oh, uh, yes," Will managed, a little startled. This time, he caught Simon and Jane glancing at each other in amusement, and he quirked a look at Jane to say, '_what was that all about?_' She looked straight on at him, a mischievous blush on her cheeks, and then winked as if to say, '_maybe I'll tell you later.'_

"I hope it doesn't," Bran added softly, a smirk on his face that _he'd _remembered his 'lines' right.

"Why, I thought you liked snow," Jane said.

"I do," Bran said, and his voice held the same tone he did as if he was quoting something. "But I'm afraid it's so bright down here that if I go out in the snow I'll never be found."

Jane and Simon laughed. "Ve-ry funny," Will said in a slow deadpan.

"We'll have to paint you bright orange, like the golf players do so they don't lose their balls in the snow," Barney said, barely being able to keep his face straight. Bran laughed, although it was a little louder than before. Jokes _were_ less funny the second time around, especially self-deprecating ones.

"Or maybe green, like that paint in the caravan in Cornwall," Simon suggested calmly.

"Huh?" Barney and Jane spoke at the same time, completely confused, and Will this time didn't look outwardly surprised as Simon blinked, and a fuzzy expression came over his face.

"I… don't remember exactly…" Simon said, sounding really doubtful. "Just… it glowed, and it was… Dark…"

The word seemed to have a transformation over Bran, Barney and Jane, and Will's four guests looked sombre and quiet in the flickering firelight.

Suddenly Barney snorted, breaking the mood. "Glowed and was dark?"

Jane giggled, and the mood was broken.

"A bit ridiculous, no?" Simon said.

There was a pause, a soft lull in the conversation, and Will realised Bran had forgotten what he said next.

"Maybe it was glow-in-the-dark paint?" Will said, a smug look on _his_ face this time. Bran surreptitiously slid him a two-fingered gesture.

"Perhaps," Simon said, as if to cue.

"I don't remember such a caravan," Jane said. Will remembered that Bran had inexplicably stared at him at this point, and he deliberately turned his face to Bran. Their gazes met this time, locked and held, almost as if a challenge for a few brief seconds. Bran flinched away first, his cheeks burning instantly red, and Will turned his attention back to the others, but not fully, as '_what the _hell_ just happened!_' was more the mantra running through his brain at that particular moment.

"I don't think you were there," Simon said. Jane frowned.

"I guess I can't have been," Jane said, the same troubled look Simon was sporting moments before being echoed on her features. Will felt sick again, but was able to ignore it more this time.

"Hush about that, Jane," Barney said, chiding Will. "I think Will's bored enough by your flightiness from the couple of months at Uni, he doesn't need it from you in the holiday."

Jane glared at her brother, then instantly looked apologetic. "Sorry, Will."

Will held up one hand. He watched it slowly, as if amused, as if it was being pulled by an invisible string. "It's fine, no apology needed." He felt his mother looking on, and was warmed by the attention. He felt the same rush of love he'd felt before, the first time around, and was inexplicably cheered by that. _Love never changes, does it?_

Feeling more at peace than he had done in a while, Will turned to look at his mother, and smiled widely.

"Will, do you want your usual tomorrow?" said his mother.

Will nodded. "I hope you have enough onions," he said rather too loudly. The Drews exchanged a confused glance, which grew more bewildered as a mock-scream came from the hallway. Will recognised James' anguished scream and sniggered. "Thank you."

"My pleasure, Will," said his mother, as she disappeared off again.

"What was that about?" said Barney.

Will chuckled, still amused by hearing James' girlish squeal. "It's a tradition for us Stantons, to have our favourite meals on our birthdays, and mine is liver and onions. It causes a lot of discomfiture to say the least with my brothers and sisters…"

"I wish I had brothers and sisters," Bran announced cheerfully. At Will's look, he shrugged, knowing he'd dropped a line but looking equally uncaring about it. "It must be nice to be in such a large family."

"It's a nightmare!" Will said. "Hand me downs! Crowding! Baby talk! Shared bedrooms!" He smiled fondly. "Also, the amusement of having a brother that SOUNDS LIKE A GIRL never grows old!"

"I HEARD THAT!" James bellowed from the kitchen.

Will sniggered, feeling even more free. "Funny how you knew I meant you!" Will bellowed back cheerfully.

"Pah," came the disgruntled reply.

"It's all right, Bran," Barney said as soon as he'd managed to stop giggling. "I'll let you have Simon and Jane," said Barney with an imperious nod. Jane's soft expression of humour changed abruptly to one of outrage, and she jabbed her brother in the side with her elbow. Barney let out a soft grunt of surprise, and spilled cocoa over his arm. Instantly, Simon and Jane were at his side, mopping it up with paper tissues.

"Good thing it was cold," Simon said, no small amount of relief in his voice. Barney pulled a face at his older brother.

Barney's stomach grumbled, and the youngest of those amassed pulled a face. "Sorry."

"Don't apologise," said Will. A curious look passed over his face, and he quirked a look at Bran. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I think so, Will, but perhaps we need more uranium in the bomb if we're going to destroy America," Bran quipped, earning himself a thump from Will.

"You two watch too many cartoons in the TV room," Jane said, mock-reprimanding them.

Will edged a look at the clock on the wall, and then looked pointedly at Bran. Bran's mouth fell open into an 'o' of acknowledgement.

Looking at each other, Will mouthed _three, two, one_ before they yelled in unison with Mary, "DINNER'S NEARLY READY, EVERYONE!"

"Thanks for that," Mary's voice floated out, sounding amused.

"You're abusing your powers, grasshoppers," Stephen said, who had just edged into the room, grinning at the two.

"Bite me," Will remarked cheerfully as they abandoned their mugs and trooped through into the dining room.

"If dinner wasn't ready," James remarked fervently as they came in, having heard Will's declaration, "I would."

* * *

As Simon, Barney, Bran and Will slowly walked into the attic bedroom after dinner, there was no discussion over who was sleeping where. Bran and Will automatically moved over to the bed, and sat on it, leaving the two Drews to gratefully flop down onto the Li-Los.

They'd grabbed the bathroom as a pack before any of the others could grab it, which was fortunate, as last time they'd had to wait half an hour until Robin had woken himself up.

There was no pillow fight, either, just a quietness as they all got ready for bed. Will stripped to his t-shirt and boxers, and then, on a whim, decided to get a clean t-shirt out. He crossed over to his chest of drawers, deliberated, pulled out a blue one rather than the two temptingly black ones on top of the pile, and changed into it. Slowly, and deliberately, and directly in view of Bran. He couldn't even explain to himself _why_ he did it, but he was glad he did, for when he'd pulled his head through, Bran had gone a queer shade of pink, and looked away really quickly.

Feeling an almost silly smile stretch across his face, Will was glad to have been able to play turnabout on that event. Will ran his hands through his hair, shook it, and then climbed long-leggedly into the bed. He sank carefully down onto the mattress, feeling rather than watching Bran do the same.

"Hey, boys, you all ready?"

Will twisted to see his dad looking around at their sleeping arrangements, satisfied that they all had somewhere to sleep.

"Yeah," Will said.

"We're all snuggled in and ready to snore," Barney chirped cheerfully.

"Shall I turn the lights off for you?" Roger Stanton asked.

"Please," Simon said, with the fervour of one who is almost always left to be the one to turn the light off at bedtime.

"Night, dad," Will said, sleepily.

Roger smiled at his youngest. "Night, Will."

Darkness flooded the room then, along with the queer silvery moonlight. It was half an hour earlier to the last time, so everything was a little more visible, a little more strange. Will lay stiffly, with the same discomfort as before, and he closed his eyes as he focussed on listening to his father's footsteps fade away. He and Bran stared at the ceiling in silence, until the soft snores announced that Barney and Simon had managed to fall asleep.

"Don't alienate Maggie tomorrow," Bran said, in a sudden whisper.

Will was struck by the strangeness of the command, and he twisted carefully onto his side to look at Bran. Bran did the same until they were face-to-face on the pillow.

"Why?" Will whispered back, honesty confused.

"She has the dust, and if we can't figure out this time how to stop it, we'll need it again," Bran said practically.

"Oh. Okay." Will shifted, unable to look away from Bran. "Why would you think I might?"

"The conversation looked a little heated last time," Bran explained. "Besides, this time travelling - okay, time _repeating _- thing is bound to make _anyone_ a little ornery."

"Meaning?"

"At some point, we're both going to have urges to start ripping off peoples' heads. Admit it: even this time you wanted to commit fratricide against James for his Bach spiel thing."

Will pulled a wry face, but said, "Bran, I _always_ have the urge to commit fratricide. _Especially_ when it comes to James."

"True," Bran said, sounding amused. His eyes, golden still now in the muted moonlight, travelled over Will's face, and Will fought the urge to recoil from the analysis.

"Bran," Will said suddenly, reminded of a conversation he'd had with Jane before, "why did you choose to do Anthropology at Exeter?"

Bran blinked. Obviously it wasn't a question he was expecting. "Why, aren't I good at it?" Bran said snippishly with a trace of that familiar arrogance that Will was starting to find oddly endearing.

"No, you're brilliant, it's just-" Will screwed his face up a little as he tried to phrase it the way he meant it. "It just seems a coincidence, is all. Jane took it because of a little pre-emptive prompting from Merriman before he left, and-"

"Merriman?" Bran asked, confused.

"Yes," Will said, before remembering Bran didn't know about him, "He was my mentor, the first of the Old Ones. You might know him better as Merlin," he added mischievously.

"_Iesu grist_," Bran muttered, resorting to his native tongue for blasphemy as opposed to the more hilarious English example he'd used earlier. "You mean the stories about Merlin, and King Arthur and all that are _true_?"

Will's chest tightened. He suddenly felt like the worst betrayed of them all. He fought to keep that from his face. "Yes," he whispered, hoping Bran would mistake the tightness in his voice for trying to keep his voice down. "They're true."

Bran blinked at him. "Nice to know there are _some_ benefits to this whole Old One lark."

Will grinned. "Yeah, and I get a good insight in previous cultures that makes the whole degree _lark_ a whiz."

Bran meant to smack him lightly in the arm, but it turned into more of an affectionate pat. Suddenly they were both awkward again.

"Um. Anyway. Uh, sleep well," Bran said quickly, his voice still low, before he turned away from Will rapidly. Will stared at Bran's back for a quiet moment before rolling onto his own back, worried that he'd done something wrong.

Sleep just wouldn't come this time. He felt every inch of Bran's presence on the bed next time to him acutely. His breath fell and rose with Bran's, he was in tune with him, and he knew it. Staring at the ceiling, Will's breath slowed with Bran's until Will was sure Bran was asleep. Bran had rolled onto his back, but his eyes were closed. Had Bran been awake, Will was certain he would have avoided looking at Will.

Confused, Will looked across at Bran, and found himself smiling at the small sounds Bran made when he was asleep, and he was so absorbed in doing this while refusing to analyse that he _was_ doing it, that when Bran rolled over onto him, it surprised him.

Will looked down at Bran's head in pure bafflement for a moment. _This must be how it happened before_, he realised, and was oddly touched by the thought. Looking across at the Drews sleeping on the floor, Will lifted his arm as if he had no choice in the matter. If Bran woke, or realised in the morning, then Will had the defence that it had naturally happened the first time around. And if Barney woke again and drew them, well, he had drew in his name, he couldn't help it...

It was when he realised that he was inwardly babbling excuses for what he was about to do, that he realised also that he was entirely nervous about deliberately doing this. It was a perfectly normal thing for friends to do, right? He and Bran had hugged a few times in their first semester, due to loneliness and homesickness, and yes, Bran wasn't awake for his, but he knew Bran wouldn't smack him away were they both awake... There was absolutely nothing for him to be nervous about, and yet he was. He wanted to do it, more than anything in the whole world, something about Bran against him like that was making him feel over-protected and safe and horribly confused all at once.

He realised he should probably analyse why he was feeling this, but he didn't want to, feeling that ignorance might save him from the pain that the truth would bring. With a casualness he didn't feel, he brought down his arm, and put it gently around Bran's waist, slightly tugging the slight albino closer.

Bran muttered something under his breath, and the hand that had fallen on Will's chest tightened into the material of his t-shirt. Will heard a thudding sound, and realised with alacrity it was his heartbeat. He closed his eyes, shut them tight against realisation, but it was useless.

Understanding washed over him regardless, and he scrunched his eyes tighter in defiance of the truth. He'd realised the night before that he cared for Bran, and they'd be playing some strange hormonal flirting games through mutual attraction, but that was just part of being a teenager. It was normal to lust after the body of _anyone_ who was around you, all the books said so. Lust he could, and was previously, dealing with, but this- It _couldn't_ be. He couldn't _afford_ this! It wasn't- it couldn't- oh_ please, please, please let it not! I just don't have _time_ for this!_

His head fell forwards in denial, and he pressed his face into Bran's hair, desperate for salvation. Bran's hair was soft against his cheek, almost like the soft down of a chicken, and this somehow made it all the worse. His cheeks felt like they were almost stinging, and he was so wrapped up in the feeling that he didn't realise Bran had woken up, and was looking up at him sleepily, unmoving from where he had moved onto Will, and making no attempt to pull away.

"Will," Bran was saying softly. "_Will_. You're crying. What's wrong? Will?"

Bran spoke Will's name softly like a benediction, a prayer, a plea.

"It's nothing," Will muttered. "I'm sorry." He moved self-consciously, the abrupt understanding of his own feelings making him painfully self aware.

Bran, resisted Will, and tugged at him so sharply he ended up reversing their position, with Will's head against his chest, his own face in Will's hair. Will's hands clutched helplessly into Bran's t-shirt.

"Ssshhh," Bran soothed softly, his hands pressing into Will's hair as his golden eyes stared flatly over Will's head. After a few moments, Will had subsided, although Bran still felt as if he was fragile or made out of porcelain as he shifted back to see Will's face. "What's wrong?" Bran said again, his voice low, a command, an order, not a question. "Tell me."

"Just... everything," Will murmured. "And nothing at all."

Bran's eyes searched Will's face for more of an answer. When it was no obvious he would get no further answers, he silently just pulled Will into a hug, and let him rest in his arms until he'd fallen asleep. Only when Will had fallen asleep did Bran let himself do the same.

* * *

The morning arrived, and Bran expected some explanation of Will's weird emotional outburst before they'd fallen asleep, but Will acted almost angrily, like it hadn't happened, or that he should be hurt that it did.

Will barely grunted good morning at him as he woke them both up at the same time, and Will had stomped off to use the bathroom before Bran. When Bran had come back from the bathroom, Will had already pulled on the red jumped in anticipation of the argument, and had obviously decided even attempting with the black fleece was a bad idea.

"Will-" Bran started, and Will flickered a cool glance at Bran, devoid of any emotion. "Happy birthday," he finished lamely.

Will nodded, cursorily. "Thanks," he said.

"We're going to have to talk about last night, you know," Bran said, in a light tone, almost as if they could be talking about the weather. Only the turmoil in his eyes betrayed him.

"I know," Will said, in an ambiguous tone, before walking briskly out of the room. Bran stared helplessly at his retreating back.

Shucking on his clothes as quickly as he could manage, Bran hurried downstairs, but couldn't talk to Will as the Old One in question received birthday greetings and hugs from the members of the family already awake. This time, at least, Bran learned that it was traditional not to open presents until after dinner in the Stanton household, and he learned that just as he slid into the chair by the cooker for breakfast. He suspected Stephen said it clearer this time on account of his baffled expression the first time round. He also suspected that it was the first time Will had heard of this tradition, too, by the way Will was looking amused at the blatant cover up of the party.

"Here, Will," said Barney, interrupting Will as he tried to start on the scrambled eggs his mother passed him. Barney passed Will a piece of paper, and Bran felt sorry for Will being under such scrutiny. The Stantons were all plagued with varying degrees of curiosity, Barney looked pleased with himself and Jane looked confused, although Simon looked clued-up on whatever it was. "Happy birthday."

Will sat back with a wary glance at his family and, shielding the contents from everyone else, unrolled the paper and stared. Obviously it was different this time, as again a deep flush instantly crossed his cheeks and Will instantly pulled the paper shut and rolled it up under the table furiously.

"Barney!" Will hissed, still blushing.

Barney impudently stuck his tongue out. "Sorry. I woke up in the night, and couldn't help it." He cocked his head to one side. "It was so cute."

"Barney Drew, you are an unmitigated git," Will declared with an abruptness in his tone and surprise on his face, and Bran realised that Will had repeated what he had said last time round, unaware that that was what he was actually doing.

"Don't we get to see?" Jane said, pouting, as Paul began to tickle Will in an attempt to get the paper.

"Thank you, Barney," Will said, his voice low, as Barney sniggered.

"You're welcome," Barney said.

Simon just looked amused, and, after a moment the rest seemed to be consigned to the fact they'd never see the picture; especially if it were as incriminating as it sounded.

Breakfast continued in the same vein as it had previously; an unruly disorder of toast being passed hand to hand, eggs being eaten, orange juice being alternately gulped down and spilled on the tablecloth, tea being brewed and poured and lively chatter alternating between the eating, but Bran perceived a tension in the air that had not been there before, and when a rapping sound disturbed them, he realised he'd imagined the tension - it was his own nervousness. Would Maggie turn up, or wouldn't she?

Max moved to open the door, and a gust of wind accompanied Maggie Barnes, the 'witch' girl. Will looked at her almost petulantly this time, after making sure she held a brightly coloured box in one hand.

"Brought a present for the birthday boy," Maggie Barnes said, as she pulled the light-blue scarf off her head and smiled sweetly at Max. A cat-call from James was silenced by a glare from Max, and Will's second-oldest brother fidgeted uneasily.

He felt her gaze suddenly on his own, and saw the subtle expression in her eyes which Bran recognised from before he'd used the dust.

"I would have a word in private with you, Watcher," Maggie said, her tone imperious, and her gaze never left Will's own.

"The answer's no, Maggie," Will said, almost bored. "It was no the first time, too."

Maggie looked confused, and it was then that Bran realised she did not remember the previous time.

"I see," she said, discontented. "Very well." She dumped the box on the counter. "Make sure you open it tonight," she added, disgruntled, before sweeping out of the house.

Will dug into his scrambled eggs, and then obviously realised he'd have to give some kind of an explanation, and he suddenly found his fork very fascinating.

"She wanted someone to teach her nephew about birds," Stephen broke in unexpectedly, "Will has all those books upstairs, see."

The explanation was flimsy at best, but Bran was surprised that the family seemed to take it at full face value. Perhaps some lingering magic affected them. Breakfast finished altogether more quietly, and Bran, Stephen and Will managed to migrate into a corner afterwards while some of the others did the washing up this time around.

"Do I get to see it, this time round?" Bran asked Will softly, wondering how to break the weird mood that hung over them, like a spell.

"What?" Will blinked, and then realised Barney's drawing was still crushed protectively in his left hand. He realised too late that Bran was going to bounce for it, but still managed to grasp hold of it. Bran was left to tug at his wrist. Bran made another grab for it, but Will twisted away, and Bran's hand just managed to slip up his arm.

Expecting the same smoothness up his arm that Bran had noticed many a time Will had for the most part of all the skin Bran had managed to see, Bran was surprised to feel what felt like deep callouses on Will's wrist. Because Will was expecting Bran to go for the picture, he was too shocked to resist when Bran just grabbed Will's arm and twisted it over, yanking the jumper back to expose the soft underside of his wrist.

A reddened, healed scar marred the smooth, pale surface. A circle, with a cross, burned deep into his skin. Fascinated, Bran forgot about going for the paper, and instead traced the shape with the tip of one finger. "How did you do this?"

Will looked around, as if to see if anyone was watching, but apparently they'd decided that Will was distracted enough by Stephen and Bran, and were taking advantage of the time to do 'secret things' for the surprise party.

"The first night," Will said quietly, but almost as if he was surprised, "I found out that I was an Old One, some of them put me to the test, to see if I could light a fire with my mind."

"Light a fire with your mind?" Stephen scoffed instantly. Will tossed Stephen a '_you're such an idiot_' look that only younger siblings could pull off so well, and pointedly looked at the fireplace. It was lit, but the flames had dwindled. Will looked at it, narrowed his eyes for a moment, and the flames leapt suddenly, higher. Stephen blinked at the fire, then at Will, then at the fire again, then back at Will. "Um. Okay. So what happened?"

"To cut a long, convoluted story short, I set a candle alight, forgot the candlestick was still hot, and tried to pick it up. It burned my wrist then." Will's face was soft with memory. Bran didn't quite believe the story, but he was starting to be unsure of what to believe any more. "They healed it then, too."

Bran looked back down at the scar, and realised he was idly tracing the cut he'd made the day before to see if Will bled with his thumb. He let go, almost awkwardly, and then took advantage of Will's distraction to grab the picture.

Will was too surprised to keep hold of it, and Bran triumphantly unrolled it before Will could grab it back. As he looked down, prepared to imprint it solidly on his memory before Will grabbed it back, his mouth fell open into an 'o'.

"It's beautiful," he murmured, the words his first instinct to the brilliantly vivid pencil sketch of the two, Bran cradling Will in his sleep as if he wasn't ever going to let go.

"Barney's right, it is cute," Stephen declared, startling Bran into rolling it up again and blushing. He'd been blushing _far_ too much for his own good here.

Bran looked up, expecting Will to look embarrassed, but instead Will was looking up at Stephen, an expression of gratitude clear on his face. Bran realised that in that agreement, Stephen was giving some kind of permission for- for whatever it was that was going on between Will and himself. Bran wasn't particularly sure there was _anything_ real going on, but was softly touched by the fact that if it _were_, Will would have at least one supportive family member.

"I can't help being naturally cute," Bran said instead, teasingly, leading Will to grab the picture and move as if to wallop him around the head, but instead he paused, mid-swipe.

Bran, who had tensed for the soft hit, turned his face in confusion to see Will staring in horror out the window.

"It's snowing," Stephen said, almost fascinated. "You always used to wish for snow on your birthday, and now it's here..." He shifted a little. "Well, I know we _knew_ it was going to snow, but still... It's kind of magical."

"Can you affect the weather, Will?" Bran asked, watching Will's reaction to the snow falling rather than watching the snow.

"The Light can't," Will said, and the meaning was clear, the words ringing openly even though unspoken, _but the Dark can._ For the first time, Bran recognised fear on Will's face, and threw everything to the wind as he reached forward and took Will's hands in his own. Ignoring the sudden need to flee written all over Will's startled face, Bran pierced him with the sternest glare he could.

"We'll figure out a way to get them, Will," Bran said, as confidently as he could manage, and was himself surprised by his firm, unwavering tone. "There has to be a way. It might take another repeat of these couple of days, it might take a thousand, but we'll _get there_."

"How do you know that?" Will had obviously pushed aside the problems he appeared to have with Bran for the moment to concentrate on the thing he was really worried about.

"Because I trust you," Bran said simply, letting the honesty of the feeling through into his voice. In the corner of his eye, Bran could see Stephen nodding in agreement.

"You shouldn't." Will's face was like thunder, and his voice lightning. "You shouldn't trust me at all." And Will pulled away before Bran could stop him, leaving him to stare at an equally puzzled Stephen.

"What just happened?" Bran questioned incredulously, for what was probably the twentieth time in the last few days, and would not be - he suspected - the last time either.

Stephen shook his head, just as perplexed. Concern aged his features, as he said, "I have absolutely no idea."

Outside, the snow fell, small flakes of ice, each individual, each a fragile pattern. The Dark brought this on, Bran thought. A million beautiful miniature sculptures, that accumulatively could destroy a planet. Bran shook that thought away and instead headed off to find Will and smack aforementioned Old One's inner bitch, while inside the house a pouch of dust lay nestled beside some clues inside a brightly coloured box, and outside the snow fell, and the Darkness began to gather...

* * *

_To be continued.

* * *

_

Translation:

_Iesu Grist_ Jesus Christ.


	4. But For The Grace

The Dust of Time

Summary: Will struggles with his conscience, while struggling with the Darkest threat he's come up against so far - his own family's memories. Will/Bran Slash.

Disclaimer: "The Dark is Rising Sequence" does not belong to me, it belongs to Susan Cooper, the amazing Goddess that she is. This is written by a fan, for the fans, and no money has exchanged hands what-so-ever. "Much Ado About Nothing" does not belong to me either, and belongs to a similarly famous Old One - William Shakespeare.

* * *

Part Four - "But For The Grace."

* * *

"Hey, look!" Barney's voice was exuberant as he yanked something out of the lower cupboard of the wallside cabinet. "This is _super._" 

"What's super?" Jane called, sitting cross-legged against the wall, too comfortable to move and see what Barney was shrieking about. She'd been sat, amicably chatting with Bran and Will, as Will's parents had asked them to keep Will out of the way and distracted, but the task was more difficult than she could have ever imagined. There was something going on, she _knew_ it. Normally Bran and Will had a close relationship, and were pretty much inseperable around campus and when they shared the chaos of cooking for themselves in their dingy student halls, but there was something frosty there, between them, as cool as the snow outside.

"He's found the mono-nopoly," Will said dryly, which confused Jane a little as Will wasn't in any position to see the wallside cabinet; his back was in the direction of the cabinet.

Perhaps that's the only decent thing in there, she surmised, but resolved to check it out, somehow.

"Mononopoly?" Bran's face registered confusion, and even Jane had to stop and think at the incredulity in Bran's voice. Bran's soft, melodic tones only heightened the ridiculous sound of the world.

Will flushed then, inexplicably. He looked embarrassed, and his fingers clenched for a moment in the bright red jumper he was wearing, a sure sign that whatever it was, the answer was humiliating and about Will himself. _And there's another strange thing! You haven't seen Will dressed in anything but black all term. _"S'what I used to call it, is all," he mumbled, barely coherent, as Barney trundled over and with a flourish deposited a worn Monopoly board on the floor between them. Barney settled down as Simon sat down next to him, clutching a small square box, in the same brown-and-cream design as the board.

Jane moved then, touched by the board, and she let her fingers graze the old cardboard, smiling as her fingers brushed the _patent pending_ notice in the middle. This set really _was_ something. Simon mistook her interest for a sign that she wanted to set up the board, and he pushed her the cards and pieces.

"I'm going to be the banker," Jane declared, feeling almost as if she was staking a flag on the board and claiming it as her own. _Queen of all I survey,_ she thought, a smile quirking on her face, and as she looked up to gage the other's reactions, she caught a funny look on Will's face, as if he knew what she was thinking, and was similarly amused by it.

Flustered, she quickly set up the rest of the board, all fingers and thumbs, feeling as if a thousand people were staring at her. Her hair fell in her face, and she brushed it away, getting more and more irritated. It was like a cloud of tension was falling around her, inside her, and she felt her mood getting snappish. She shook herself slightly, as if physically shaking away the annoyance. _Aren't you too old to be getting a black dog on your shoulder?_ something inside her asked, but it held such a note of taunting that Jane wasn't particularly sure in that moment that it had been her _own_ internal voice asking that question.

Something inside her was waking up, something that she felt she should know, she should understand, but she couldn't. It was like... She struggled for an analogy... Like trying to run and jump onto a cloud, but the clouds always got further and further away, and...

"I'll take the iron, milady," Barney declared loudly, his hair flopping into his mouth. He blew it away, irritated, spluttering a little as Jane dumbfoundedly handed him the iron.

She was more frustrated now, as the others bickered cheerfully over who would get the racecar, and the ship, and the top hat, and the dog. She felt like she'd just stumbled upon something, upon the answer that was everything, that would tell her everything, and Barney had just interrupted her thoughts!

Calm down_! Barney wasn't to know. And if it's important, it'll come back to you... Just be patient._

down 

"All riiiiight!" Barney had taken it upon himself to liven up the atmosphere. His voice held the tone of a ringmaster, and Barney had exhaled, swelling his chest. "Let the gaaaaaaames begin!"

Jane smiled, picked up the dice and held them forward to Will. "Birthday boy should start, right?" She said, her voice strong with fondness for him, but she faltered as his eyes suddenly dilated, opening a little further before turning to Bran, his brow furrowed a little.

Some silent communication passed between the two, but it was small, and a stranger to them would have missed it - Will arched his eyebrows a little, Bran shrugged - but she caught it, and she knew Will must have figured something out. Something he obviously couldn't tell her.

Indignation rose in her again, and she squashed it as Will turned to her, his head turning effortlessly, and he smiled at her as if there had been no pause, taking the dice from her hands easily and throwing them down.

"There's just too many damn people in this family!"

Jane was distracted from the results of the roll, and so was everyone else as James and Mary came into the room, squabbling and with armfuls of brightly coloured sugar paper. There were a few paper chains up, so she surmised they were making some more.

"James, mind your manners. We have guests, and it's Will's birthday."

James flushed at Mary's reprimand. "Sorry. But there are!"

Barney smothered a giggle with his hand, but cupped his hand instead, which Jane knew he did to annoy her - it always made his giggles louder. At her glower, he immediately assumed his innocent-angel expression, the one that got him out of a _lot_ of things scot-free with their parents, which was only so effective because Barney could blush on command. "Ma always thought three were enough. Wonder what she'd think of three girls and six boys!"

Jane turned her head. She didn't know why but she was expecting Will to say something, but when she looked at him, he looked so saddened that she felt sad too, but couldn't have described _why_ or even how.

"There were seven," James said. "I'm number six, not five."

"Yeah," Mary said sadly, "Our Will is the seventh son of a seventh son. Da was one too. Well," she corrected, "he was a seventh son."

"But, unfortunately, not very psychic," James said, smirking, "otherwise he would have predicted next week's lottery numbers."

"Twelve, thirty-two, one, four, forty-eight and thirty-five," Will rattled off instantly, with a mock-superior look directed at his older brother.

James rolled his eyes. "Our very own Mystic Meg. I might just throw up." He shifted awkwardly, the load of paper in his arms teetering a little. "Any chance of a hand in carting this into the kitchen? There's another couple of boxes on the stairs."

"You know I love that you're celebrating the wonder of my birthday and all, but destroying a rainforest for me is _really_ going above and beyond," Will said, in a jokey tone, but Jane knew Will enough (or thought she did) to know he was being a little fake about it. He looked a little tired and stressed, so she dubiously put it down to that - sharing a room with her snoring brothers was enough to make sure any normal person didn't get much sleep.

"For that," James said, "you can do it."

Will pulled a face, but got up anyway.

"We're in the middle of a game!" Bran protested. James looked pointedly down at the board, and Bran shut his mouth, instead getting to his feet. "I'll help, and then I'll be back quicker," he muttered.

"So where do you want this?" she heard Will say as he wandered off, with Bran shadowing him almost protectively, and she was reassured - that was a more normal sight for her. The two were good friends, and very protective of each other, that was natural, it was what friends are for...

"Jane?"

Simon's low, conservative voice broke through her train of thought, and she gasped quietly, realising that she was staring in the direction the Stantons plus Bran had disappeared in. "Um," she said, a little unnerved, "I'm going to see if they need any help." She got to her feet, feeling an awkwardness in her limbs that she hadn't felt since first getting growth pains. She moved to go, and then turned with a grin to the box of money, picking it up to take with her.

* * *

"Well, _this_ didn't happen last time," Bran complained, as he bent down to pick up the paper that had showered over the floor when the sagging box he'd picked up to carry through had dissolved in his hands. Mary and James had skipped upstairs, arguing cheerfully again about the glue James had left upstairs and disappearing scissors - a chronic problem in the Stanton household - leaving them alone to pick up the disaster. 

"We were further through the game last time," Will said curtly, bending down, his hair falling down, a thick barrier, shielding his face like a...

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Bran couldn't help from laughing at the thought, and Will's eyes narrowed dangerously across the carpet of bright paper.

"You've got Wizard of Oz on the brain again, haven't you?" Will accused, referring to the previous month where Bran had insisted on cheering up their dorm by singing every Wizard of Oz song.

"You know me too well. However, as for me knowing you..." There was an uncomfortable pause, and Will stilled, not wanting to hear their friendship was over, "I still can't believe you've never read _The Princess Bride_," Bran said, "call yourself all powerful."

"I never said I was all powerful," Will snapped back automatically, realising it was an acceptance of sorts - you're weird, but you're still my friend.

"Buttercup's Baby I can understand - that hasn't been abridged, but-"

"I wonder if I killed you and then reset time whether you'd be alive again at the beginning of the loop," Will mused out loud.

Bran froze, and all the white slid from his face, leaving him grey and gaunt. "You _wouldn't_."

"Want to test that theory?" Will countered. "Besides, how do you know I haven't? How do you know we haven't looped a thousand times already?"

Bran blinked three times, very quickly, but otherwise didn't move. He then turned, and purposefully flipped the lid off the colourful box still resting on the counter. Quickly removing the pouch of dust, he shoved it in his pocket and then exhaled slowly, as if having just run a marathon and survived.

He caught Will's curious glance and shrugged. "Just making sure," he said, before pulling it out again and quickly but gently checking the contents. "Still the same amount it was before I used any," Bran said, sounding relieved as he tucked it away again.

"Of course," Will said maddeningly, "in this time stream you haven't used it yet."

"But I thought you said time had repeated, not _looped_," Bran said.

Will sighed, and assumed a look of someone older talking to someone very young. "If you want to learn the actual mechanics of time travel, why don't we take a couple of these loops off and let me explain it to you?"

Bran screwed up his face a little. "Let's not and say we did," he suggested instead. "We could take one of them off, though." His face lit up a little, returning more to its previous colour. "Think of the possibilities! Maggie didn't remember - only me, Stephen, and-"

"Simon," Will added, helpfully.

"Right." Bran paused in the middle of whatever epiphany he'd just had. "How come it was just us that remembered?"

"I think it's because we had a physical connection during the time you threw the dust," Will said distractedly, as if it was second nature to him to understand and comprehend such things, and that it was unnatural for anyone not to. "I was touching your arm, Stephen had hold of me... Simon might have fallen or something, come into contact for the brief second..."

"Ah," Bran said. "Anyway- Like I was saying - think of the possibilities! A couple of days with no consequences, where no one would remember..."

"Can we save the philosophy for another time? When the end of the world isn't quite so imminent?" Will questioned.

"Will there be another time?"

Will sank against the table casually. "What do you mean?"

Bran moved to lean against the cooker, mimicking Will's posture. "How do I know that you won't make me forget? You haven't done it in the past, but what's to stop you from doing it now?"

"Nothing," Will admitted.

Bran tensed at the unexpected candidness of Will's response, and he turned his gaze to the kitchen tiles, clearly flumoxed. There was a long silence, as Bran's lips moved soundlessly, and Will just let the silence linger, wanting to give Bran the time to talk.

What eventually came out of Bran's mouth wasn't what he was expecting.

"You didn't make me forget, did you?"

Will felt his own face move soundlessly. "Of course not," he said.

"No," Bran said sharply, as if hurt, his gaze moving up to meet Will's. He looked angry, and every inch a king, and Will resisted the urge to step back into the table. "That's not what I meant. _You_ didn't make me forget. Someone else did."

"What? I-"

"_Don't lie to me!_" Although Bran was keeping his voice down, his frenzied whisper hurt more than any shout, and Will closed his eyes, squeezing his lips together and trying to breathe quietly. "What did I forget, Will? What happened that's obviously so terrible?"

"I can't tell you," Will said quietly, miserably. "I can't."

"Will. _Please_."

"Bran," Will replied, just as painfully, his eyes opening to reveal a storm of tempest proportions, "please."

"Will."

For a moment, it looked as if Will was about to cave from the pressure, and then that moment passed. Will shook his head, looking for all the world like a big shaggy dog for a second as his hair flew every which way, before raising his head determinedly.

"Bran," he said simply, "no. Ask me almost anything but that."

"Don't ever make me forget."

Will looked at Bran slowly, like Bran was something new he'd never seen before. "That could be a dangerous request," he said, his voice almost like ice. He started to move, almost circling Bran, his fingertips dancing on the tablecloth as he moved.

"What do you mean?" Bran asked, before he could stop himself, almost entranced by the hypnotic smoothness of Will's step. Will was backing up now, but his fingers were still touching the tabletop.

"What if you saw your da die? Ripped into a zillion pieces right in front of you?" Will questioned, looking directly at Bran even as he moved.

Bran swallowed, but kept eye-contact with this strange, confident Will. "Is-is that what happened?"

Will laughed then, surprising Bran, not a laugh of amusement or humour, but one of derision. "Dream away, Bran Davies, and you'll never come close to the answer."

Bran tensed at this strange playful tone in Will's voice, suddenly feeling very trapped and very vulnerable. Will, his Will, round faced amiable Will, was still there... somewhere... but inside Will too was this dangerous predator circling him. He'd always suspected Will had a wild side, but this was beyond any of his expectations. And so, apparently, were his missing memories. "I see," Bran said, in a small voice. "I think if I had any choice in the matter, I would choose to remember."

Will laughed again, but this had warmth. This was amusement, tinged with the derision of before. "Bran," Will said, sounding almost delighted as he slid backwards. "Bran, Bran, Bran, Bran, Bran." Will's voice was sing-song, mocking him. "A promise from an Old One is a binding contract." His voice was smooth, cold. "You have already requested to forget once in your lifetime-"

Bran shivered.

"-yet you would have me promise never to remove your memories?" Will's voice was deadly, even as he lightly picked up the box Maggie had left and lay it on the table, his hands steadily lifting the lid and taking out the single glove while his gaze still preyed upon Bran's own.

Bran lifted his chin, trembling. "Yes."

Will clapped his hands, almost delightedly, but a sardonic look crossed his face. "Done," he said flatly, "now what the heck is this all about?"

"Huh?" Bran blinked, and then noticed Will was holding the glove Maggie had left. "What does the paper say?"

"A hint and a help from the hindrance," Will said. "And she said the pouch contained the help-"

"-which convinced me to actually use it," Bran said, a little less unnerved by this brisk, businesslike Will as opposed to the genuinely quite scary one of before. He wondered for a second if Will was schizophrenic, and then wondered if maybe he just compartmentalised things, and then he stopped wondering because it wasn't getting anyone anywhere.

"How did you know to use it?" Will asked.

Bran shrugged. "When she said the pouch contained the help, and I opened the pouch and found that dust, well, I didn't know what _else_ to do. When it left my hand, though, I felt it swirl away from me, and knew I'd done the right thing."

"So the glove must be the hint." Will held it out. It was black and floppy, made of some soft but tough material, and quite long. Bran took it to examine, and he looked closely at the stitching and shape of it.

"It's a left glove," Bran said, handing it back.

Will blinked, and grinned sheepishly at Bran. "Hadn't noticed that."

"You really are going to lengths to prove that you're not all-powerful and all-seeing, aren't you?" Bran said confidently, more used to Will being sheepish than Will being intimidating. He wasn't so concerned with scary Will, because he'd experienced Will changing to de-caff coffee, and it wasn't pretty at all.

"Hmmm," was all that Will managed in response, as he held up the glove and squinted at it a little.

"Hey, would you look at that," Bran said softly.

"What?"

"It's got something black on it," Bran said.

"Does it-" Will started, before flushing again. "Moron."

"English boy."

"That is what I am," Will said, but with a slightly miffed expression now on his face which Bran took as a sign Bran had well and truly put him off guard. That relaxed Bran more than anything, and left him entirely unwary around Will. Will might have this strange other-worldly power and memories that he didn't, but he was still vulnerable to Bran. It gave him a strange thrill of power that moved him more than anything. Will wasn't as vulnerable in front of anybody else.

Will gave a small shrug, smiled quickly at Bran, inhaled slowly as if about to do something dangerous, and yanked on the glove quickly. By the quirk of Will's eyebrows, Bran assumed that Will had expected something to happen when he put it on.

"It's just a glove," Will said, disappointed.

"Then it must be a hint in some other way," Bran said, matter-of-factly. "Try pulling it all the way down."

Will nodded, and rolled up the left arm of his jumper, so that he could pull the glove down. "It's a perfect fit," he noted, rolling it over the seared mandala on his left wrist, reddened and twisting across the slightly protuding veins. "It covers the sign. Maybe it's a hint to hide who I am... but that doesn't make sense, because that's what I was doing before."

"Maybe then it's a hint to tell everyone who you are, then," Bran said, reasonably.

Will pulled a face. "Do you think?"

"Why, yes, almost every second," Bran said, teasingly.

"Almost?"

Bran gave Will a complimentary birthday bump for that.

"Come on," Bran said. "Your surprise birthday party is soon."

Will pulled a face as he got up, putting the lid back on the birthday present box and sliding it under the table, before pulling off the glove and pocketing it. Bran moved to the door first, and he pushed it open, only to jump at the sight of Jane, holding the box of money.

"Hey, was just coming to fetch you," Jane said quickly, a smile quickly sliding onto her face.

"We were just coming," Will said, "good timing." Bran edged a look at Will to see if he was suspicous at the timing, but Will's face was carefully blank.

"What's with the portable bank?" Bran decided to ask.

"The- Oh!" Jane went a little pink. "Barney has a history of cheating. I'd count your money when you get back, too."

They walked quickly back to the board, and the game almost thrummed with impatience, as if it knew it should have been started already. Jane set the box down, and then chewed at her lower lip.

"Actually, do you mind if I don't play?" Jane asked.

Will looked at her sharply. "Why?"

"Don't feel up to it," she mumbled lamely, "headache."

"We've got some paracetamol in the kitchen," Will said equably. "Come on."

Bran knew that Jane had overheard by the way she suddenly went pale.

"Oh, go on," Barney wheedled, putting on a puppy-dog expression.

"Okay," Jane mumbled, brushing down her skirt as she got to her feet, glancing accusingly at Barney as she followed Will to the kitchen.

Bran swallowed his uneasiness, and masked it by swiftly dividing out a handful of hundreds each to himself, Simon and Barney.

* * *

"I don't really have a headache, so you can stop looking for tablets," Jane announced quietly as soon as the door had swung shut. Will stilled, his hand on the cupboard, as his eyes searched her face for an indication of her mood. 

Her light eyes were dark with confusion, and her hand was currently twisted in a strand of brown hair. She was nervously playing with it; a definite "tell" that she was unnerved but was prepared to ride out whatever it was.

"What did you overhear?" Will asked, straight-out.

"I've heard you and Bran joke about some crazy things in the last few months," Jane said softly, her voice strong and unwavering. She hadn't heard much, but the thing she had caught was disturbing. "Fainting goats, zombies, dancing hamsters- and I _really_ don't get that Internet thing you're both fond of, or your weekly Indiana Jones marathons, or _either_ of your tastes in music, but- Time loops? You somehow having the power to make people forget? Will, what on earth is going on? Are we somehow stuck in the movie _Groundhog Day_?"

Will looked as if he was about to answer, but the last question caught him off guard. "Groundhog Day?" He asked, clearly baffled.

"It was a movie, about a day repeating itself over and over," Jane explained quickly.

"Ah," Will said.

Jane waited for more, but when it was obvious Will wasn't about to volunteer anything, she sighed. "Will," she said, "I thought I was supposed to be your best friend. You, me and Bran - we always said we could face anything together. So come _on_. Tell me."

Will sighed, and casually looked down at his fingernails. "All right. I suppose I had better tell you the truth." Clattering noises from upstairs started to grow louder. "But not here. Outside."

Jane nodded, making no protest that it was snowing; mutely following him outside, and around the corner of the house. The hairs on the back of her neck had risen, and she felt even more nervous than the first exam they'd had a few weeks earlier.

Will was facing the landscape, and she looked in the direction he was looking. It was a large hill, streaking upwards to meet the sky. It was pretty, but nothing overly remarkable, not like the Chiltern hills which she thought were much prettier.

"Bran and I knew there was a possibility someone would overhear," Will said eventually. He slid down, his back to the wall, and ended up staring at the same point on the horizon as he balanced his hands on his knees. "Over the last few months we've developed some... euphemisms... to certain subjects that are... sensitive."

Jane followed his movement to sit next to him. She sat with her legs underneath her, facing him, barely feeling either the snow on the ground or the flakes falling gently on her face, like dust. "Subjects you don't discuss with me."

"You can't get in a bad mood over that concept alone," Will said, chiding her gently. "I bet there's stuff you and Clare talk about that you don't talk with me and Bran about," he added, referring to one of Jane's closer friends on the course.

"That sounded serious, is all," Jane semi-mumbled, moving her gaze back to the lonely hillside where Will's gaze was still trained. "And you mentioned Simon, too. Where my brother is concerned, I have a right to know."

Will nodded slowly. "All right. The first week of term, your whole family stayed to help you move in."

"Yes," Jane said, puzzled, "wh-"

"Please just listen," Will said, and his voice sounded strained. Jane fell mute in surprise. "Simon approached me the last day of the week, and threatened none-too-softly that were I ever to hurt you, he would kill me."

"Oh, god," Jane said quietly, stunned by mortification into speech.

"Yeah," Will said, nodding, but defiantly looked away from her as he said, "He also said you had feelings for me, and that if I did not feel the same way I should be gentle with you."

Jane was too stunned by mortification to even speak.

"So I told him that I think of you as a dear friend, the dearest friend I've ever had. Ever since that first holiday we had together, I knew you were special, but-"

"-you're not in love with me," Jane finished ruefully, her chest feeling a little tight, and her voice a little giddy.

"I'm sorry," Will said frankly, still looking away from her.

"So that's why he's so frosty with you?" Jane questioned, knowing her brothers could be protective, but unsure of why Simon was _that_ bad.

"I told him exactly why I couldn't love you... _that_ way," Will said, a small smile curving his face. "Jane, I never wanted to hurt you, you have to understand that. But I can't pretend I'm something I'm not. I-"

"You're gay," Jane said, realising. She blinked.

"You're not surprised?" Will turned his face to hers, finally, and she noticed he looked frightened, as if expecting her to hurt him for not telling her.

"A little," Jane admitted. "Everything makes a little more sense now, though..."

"What do you mean by that?" Will demanded hotly.

"The Cher CDs on your desk?" Jane said teasingly.

"Wench," he muttered, as she laughed. "You're not mad, though, right?"

Jane pretended to deliberate for a long time on that one, leaving him hanging. "I'm a little hurt, of course, that you didn't tell me... but I understand," she added quickly, seeing him move to protest. "I could never be mad at you for long, Will Stanton," she said softly.

"I might remind you of that in the future," he said, smiling at her. She smiled back, and he turned away, staring back at the hill, all nature's sound muffled by the gently falling snow.

Jane opened her mouth to speak, but then noticed movement in the corner of her eye. She edged a small look to see Bran, crouched at the corner of the house and watching them with his strange, bird-like eyes. It was obvious that he'd only just gotten there. Her bland statement saying that they should probably get into the house was swallowed by a sudden burst of perception, a truth that made itself painfully clear in that exact instance.

"Don't lie to me, Will," she warned, "but I have one more thing to ask."

Will seemed unaware of Bran's presence as he continued to stare at the snowy horizon. He nodded slowly, his face tense. Jane edged a speculative glance up at Bran, who seemed to be holding his breath, before turning back to Will. The whole atmosphere felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for something, until she said, "You're in love with Bran, aren't you?"

Jane held her own breath, anxiously waiting for a reaction from Will. He seemed to have frozen, and his blue-green eyes were still. Eventually he closed his eyes, and his head seemed to sag forward, and she instinctively swivelled around and grabbed him into a hug as he bent his head into her neck. Any hurt that she still felt over him not trusting her enough to come out to her earlier was washed away by the surge of protectiveness she felt holding onto him as his body shook soundlessly.

She grasped onto Will harder as she turned to look up at Bran, who looked like someone had whipped the entire world from beneath his feet and yet he was still standing. A thousand emotions flew over Bran's face, so quickly that she could not decipher them. Bran put a hand to the wall, as if finding it hard to stand.

"Will?" Jane asked, turning back to her charge, feeling his trembling still under her hands.

"'By my troth," Will murmured, "it is no addition to his wit, nor no great argument of his folly..." He swallowed hard, pulling away from her now, looking up at her face, searching for the strength inside of himself to answer, and his eyes slid shut again as he tremblingly finished the quasi-paraphrase, "for I will be horribly in love with him."

"Will," she said, putting an ocean of feeling into his name, empathy for his pain, and such sadness, as it was obviously the first time he'd admitted it to himself, for he looked scared, like the wind could blow him away. "Only you could admit such a thing by quoting Shakespeare," she said, eliciting a grin from him even as he fought back his emotions.

"Yeah, only me," Will murmured. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, god, no, don't be," Jane said, suddenly feeling the cold and getting to her feet, pulling Will up with her, "admitting something like that shouldn't be a sad occasion. Love is a happy thing."

From the way he looked at her then, she suddenly doubted herself. "Is it?"

"Well," Jane started, defensively, "yes," she finished defiantly, and then remembered with horror that Bran was still standing there, and how would Will take it... She twisted her head tentatively to look, but Bran had gone. Only a few marks in the snow remained to show someone had stood there.

* * *

When they returned inside, Jane took one look at Barney's face and folded her arms over her chest. "You can put that money back in the bank," she said, mock-seriously. 

"Aw, Jane!"

"Don't aw, Jane me," Jane scolded, moving with Will over to the board and sitting down. Bran, Barney and Simon slowly handed over the extra money they'd pilfered from the box, grumbling. "All of it, Barney," Jane added, as Barney reached under the board and pulled out a secreted 500 note.

"Right, children," Bran said brightly, "shall we begin?"

The game was a lot more raucous this time. Jane watched Will's face more carefully, and the fog around him seemed to have been lifted, as he smiled and joked more fluidly than he had since she'd known him. _It must have been carrying around something like that that did it,_ Jane said, full of sympathy for him. She marvelled at how she was holding up for a moment - for all the times she'd imagined Will finally noticing her, all the times she'd dreamt that the small gestures and smiles her way had meant more, she'd never thought that knowing it would be impossible for them to be together would be so... so _easy_.

And Bran - Bran must have heard Will's declaration, but he was acting as if he'd been sat there the whole time, and not heard a thing. It was possible, she supposed, for Bran to have left before hearing the answer, but even the question ought to have made some impact on him.

She was so distracted that she lost quickly, and no one made any protest at all when Mary quickly nabbed her to help fix up the barn for the party.

* * *

"So," Will said heavily, in an even more pantomime-ish tone this time around, "Jane's fallen down in here, has she?" 

Bran rolled his eyes at Will's behaviour.

"Act surprised," Barney hissed, trying to be helpful.

Will hefted the first aid tin up onto his left arm, smirked at Bran, and he elbowed the door open with his right hand. "Hallo?"

"SURPRISE!"

The lights flickered on a good five seconds before the shout, and Will quickly stared into the bright lamps overhead, remembering that it helped him last time look surprised. The jab from Barney helped too.

Dutifully he scanned the barn again, noting the banners and streamers and balloons coating the walls in their bright gaiety, in their shining, rainbow spread. Fairy lights were strung over the beams, and a table laden with an impressive array of buffet food literally lined one wall. A table piled high with gifts was next to the door, underneath a banner saying "Happy 18th birthday Will!"

Will inwardly winced. Having to pretend to be surprised by every present again was going to be tough.

"So, we're in a time warp, eh?" Will commented with a smile. Beside him, Bran coughed a little, and he grinned as Stephen spluttered a little.

"Happy birthday, Will," Mrs. Stanton said, coming forwards, before registering what he'd just said. "_Time _warp?"

"As in it's astounding, time is fleeting, I'm nineteen," Will said, laughing at the banner. Mrs. Stanton flushed.

"We can cancel the party and pull it down, if you'd like," she suggested, pulling him into a hug.

"Or not," Will suggested.

* * *

"...and leg warmers! Thanks, Aunty Heather, they're fab," Will was currently enthusing over the hand-knitted objects that had tumbled out of the latest present he was wrapping. Bran looked up at Stephen over the plastic cup of fruit juice he was nursing, and they shared a secret smile. Last time, Will had gotten tongue-tied and confused when he couldn't figure out what the items were. 

"Knitted them myself," Will's Aunty Heather replied, beaming with pride, her round cheeks pink. "I remembered in your letter that you said your dorms were cold."

"Thanks," Will said again, smiling as he leant over the table and hugged her. It was a much better reaction than before, when she had slid into the chair and sulked until Robin and Paul had dragged her out to tango.

"Here, open this one," James said, pushing a neatly wrapped blue parcel in Will's direction. "It was hiding under some of the wrapping."

"Who's it from?" Mary asked, as Will took it in surprise.

Bran shuffled uncomfortably. Last time he had not sat so close for the unwrapping of the presents, and he hadn't noticed his gift had been missed the first time around. Will took it, ran his fingers over the FRAGILE notice written on it, and then opened the card. Bran was surprised when Will blinked, surprised. _He must have just figured out he'd missed it the first time round, too._

"Me," Bran said helpfully, as Will started to carefully unwrap it, making sure not to tear the sellotape. Bran knew what was in the box, so he watched Will's face for his reaction. An instant, genuine grin flew over Will's face as he took out the box and opened it, and promptly held forth a lightbulb.

"A _lightbulb_?" Mrs. Stanton was confused, but pleased that Will found it so amusing. "What-"

"It's a reference to an ongoing joke at uni, because Will somehow manages to get out of changing lightbulbs in their flat," Jane explained. "You know how in _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ the answer to life, the universe and everything is forty-two? Well, Bran and I found the real question."

"Indeed we did," Bran intoned solemnly. There was a pause as everyone waited for the answer. _Or, indeed, the question._ "How many Stantons does it take to change a lightbulb?"

Raucous laughter broke out in the large barn, swelling to the rafters.

"It's not as if I don't buy them, too," Will started to protest, until he felt the room trembling and his skin prickling at the sensation. His eyes flew to Stephen's, whose mouth fell open in realisation. The terror of the impending doom washed around him, and it was again like a heavy water was in his ears - he couldn't hear anything. His relatives were all leaning closer, looking worried, and Bran was clutching the tablecloth, mouthing what looked like '_now?'_ so Will nodded and Bran flew upwards from his seat, bringing out the pouch of dust and sliding it under his sleeve so it was easily accessible.

Silence smacked Will when the onslaught of terror ended, and he pushed himself away from the table. Grabbing Stephen, he had time to whisper, "whatever happens, make sure you're touching Bran when he uses the dust," before the floor physically trembled and the room was plunged into darkness.

"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE, OLD ONE. YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THIS."

The voice thundered out, soothing Will a little that the Dark hadn't been reading his mind the first time around - they'd only predicted what he would be thinking. The Dark didn't know time had been repeated, and Will did not want to let go of that advantage any time soon. It was possibly the only advantage he had, after all.

The lights flickered back on. Lining the hall was an army of dark robed figures, all with cowls and hoods covering their faces. The words thudded painfully through the air. The figures stepped forwards in unison, and everyone else present backed off the chairs, heading towards the centre of the hall, banding together. Will felt Stephen's hand on his elbow, and caught Bran's fierce golden-eyed stare, and felt strenghthened by their presence.

"Who are you and what do you want!" Roger Stanton's voice rang out firmly.

"WE ARE INEVITABLE." One of the cowled figures stepped forwards and threw off his hood.

"Mr. Mitothin!" Mrs. Stanton gasped in recognition.

"Mitothin. What the hell's going on?"

"I've come for the Old One," Mr. Mitothin intoned, his voice low but so crystal clear it cut through the air, tearing it into ribbons.

"Speak English, man," Roger returned, his voice edgy as he realised he had no control over the situation.

Will knew that playing the defensive position hadn't helped last time, and he surreptitiously curled his hand behind his back, running through words of power in his head.

"YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, OLD ONE. SURRENDER, OR WE KILL ALL YOUR FAMI- GAAARGH!"

Will stepped forward, hurling a ball of fire at Mitothin. Unprepared for an offensive attack, Mitothin stumbled backwards, and then Will stepped back, waving his hands openly to create the shield this time, of glowing light.

Mitothin screamed in agony and astonishment, and barked a rough command in a language that felt like corrosive acid as it slid into the air. The cowled figures flung their arms out, and dark energy coursed through the air towards them. It battered into the light shield, knocking Will back with the backlash, but he stayed upright. He felt Bran and Stephen holding him up, now, and inwardly cursed - he was all right, he shouldn't have appeared so weak so soon to the enemy!

"CAN YOU TAKE DOUBLE OUR POWER, WATCHMAN OF THE LIGHT?"

Will cried out softly, sagging in their grasp, as the dark energy intensified. The light shield sputtered, losing power. Will fell to the ground, and Stephen and Bran knelt down with him. Seeing this, Mitothin lifted up one hand, and the Dark attacks stopped too.

Mitohin's voice changed again, to that of the posh man they'd known before. "Couldn't cope, could you watcher? All alone, and you can't cope. I could kill any of your family, and you'd be powerless to stop me. For example, I remember your sister Mary was quite pretty. Still is, from what I see. A pity she will die, then." Mary gasped in terror as Mitothin lifted up his arm. Black energy lanced through the air. Roger Stanton pelted forwards, but too late. His eyes widened in horror as the energy crackled through the air towards his youngest daughter.

"NO!"

Will surged to his feet, and a white barrier surrounded Mary, protecting the shocked girl. He stared in anger at Mitothin, anger bubbling under his skin as Mitothin sneered and stepped forwards.

"Now!" Stephen hissed, his hands tightening on Will's arm, and Bran obediently nodded, pulling out the pouch and delving his hand into it. Mitothin's eyes widened upon recognition of the pouch, and he screamed in defiance, his arms forming a shape in the air, and Dark energy lanced towards Will's heart in a lethal arrow of energy, and Bran managed to throw dust from the pouch the same time as the energy hit Will. Dust like find sand swirled outwards from Bran's fingers and Mitohin's scream of rage filled his ears, but all Will knew was red and black across his vision, and a high pitched sound of laughter, and heat, and pain, and everything disappeared from around him, and he squeezed his eyes shut and the feeling of Stephen's hand on his arms fell away until it all became cold and pink...

Wait a second, cold?

Will's eyes snapped open, and he pushed himself off the mantle as fast as he could. Still dizzy from the disorientation, he fell to the carpet, and pain seared across his vision. Inhaling slowly, he pushed himself up, blinking for a moment as he willed the pain to go away. The first time the aching had stopped after a moment, but his chest still felt tight.

He put it down to the effects of the dust, and quickly moved through to the kitchen, barely recognising that his mother was heading out to the chickens in her heavy overcoat, and he had to catch himself as he staggered to the door and almost fell.

Something's wrong, his mind whispered, but he forced himself to stay upright as he opened the door. Colours swirled in front of him, and he cried out softly as the floor fell away and his body hit the gravel before he could stop it.

"Will!"

"_What's happened?"_

" 

_"What's wrong?"_

_"Call an ambulance!"_

Will felt urgent hands on him, and he whimpered as he tried to open his eyes. Eyes like a hawk peered down at him, and his vision cleared to see everyone crowding around him. He screamed out as Bran touched his chest, and then realised why as Bran pulled his hands away, and Will thought that memory might stay in his mind forever: those gentle, pale hands covered in Will's own blood, the crimson stark against the white.

Bran stumbled back in horror, and Will faintly recognised his mother, holding his hand tightly, and she said, "What happened, Will?" as calmly as she could manage. Will tried to reach inside himself for words that would explain it, but the apparent hopelessness of the situation choked him. "I don't know," he said. Tears started to fall, hot from his cheeks, splashing and mixing with his blood. "I really don't know," he added, miserably, curling up from the pain, unaware even to himself whether he was answering her question or admitting his own weakness: that against this power, alone, last of the Old Ones, with no signs or items of power, he did not know what to do... or whether there was anything he even _could_ do.

* * *

To be continued.


	5. Revelations

**The Dust of Time

* * *

**

_Summary: _Will struggles with his conscience, while struggling with the Darkest threat he's come up against so far - his own family's memories. Will/Bran Slash.

_Disclaimer: _"The Dark is Rising Sequence" does not belong to me, it belongs to Susan Cooper, the amazing Goddess that she is. This is written by a fan, for the fans, and no money has exchanged hands what-so-ever.

* * *

Part Five: Revelations

* * *

_Doubtless, sleeper, you're sleeping:_

_perhaps, dead one, you're dead._

Pablo Neruda

* * *

"I don't know, I really don't know."

Will was curled up, tight, and Bran felt dizzy, too dizzy, at the sight. Blood was seeping through the snow, painting it a too-bright red, and that's when Bran knew it was real. Blood always looked too bright when it was real.

"Think," Bran pleaded, blocking out the shrieking and gasping and flurrying of Will's worried family. Unconsciously he stepped forward and took Will's other hand in his own, turning it over, despairing at the sudden, hot temperature of Will's skin.

"Must have been hit at the exact moment of moving backwards," Will said, the words slurring together, and Bran knew it was the fever talking.

"What hit you Will?" Alice asked, but Bran roughly moved his hand to Will's chin, making Will focus on him.

Will's blue-green eyes _dull, they're too dull!_ slowly trained on his own. "The hill. Get me to the hill with the white..." Will pulled his arm out of Bran's grasp, and jerked in the direction of a hill past their small barn. "There. There's doors there-" Bran looked at him, unconvinced, "secret ones. Just get me to the hill." Will strained against the hands pressing him down.

"Are you sure. Will, are you sure?" Bran's voice was fierce as he held Will's unfocussed stare.

"Nn.. yes. Yes."

Bran jerked his head upwards and locked gazes with Stephen, who looked grim but determined, and pushing the family out of the way, Bran picked Will up, cradling him in his arms, and they began to run.

Later, he would not know where he found the strength, but find it he did. His heart pumping fast, but only in fear for Will's life, Bran's only thought was to get to the hill. He was being shouted at, and jostled, and he was vaguely aware of Stephen taking Will from him when he stumbled, and his heart screaming _please let him be coherent enough for this-whatever this is- to work._

And when they got to the hills, there wasn't anything in sight.

"There's nothing here!" Bran howled, turning to Stephen, faintly registering the rest of the Stantons and the Drews skidding up the hill after them.

Will lifted his head limply from Stephen's shoulder, where it had lolled, and faintly said: "Look again."

Bran looked, and almost stumbled back in sheer surprise at the large doors that were towering over him, arched and intricately carved. He put out a hand to push it, sceptical that it would open for him as they looked too heavy, but his palm didn't connect with the door – it fell away from him as if by magic. _Which it probably is,_ Bran thought suddenly, before brushing the thought aside, and carelessly charging forwards into the darkness the door revealed, trusting Will not to have lead them somewhere dangerous.

He could feel rather than see Stephen, still clutching Will, follow right behind him, and the tentative footsteps of the others clattered behind them, but he forged ahead regardless of the terror that vaguely tried to clutch at his heart, the fear of _they know, and they shouldn't_ being overwhelmed by his heart yelling in the pounding in his ears, _please, Will, don't die, don't die, if you die, I'll-_

Light suddenly flooded the area as Bran took one more step forward, and he blinked, his eyes adjusting. It was a large hall; pillars streaking upwards to a high, curved ceiling that Bran was willing to bet was as intricately carved as the doors that had appeared on the hillside. Over to one side was an empty fireplace, next to that, three doors with thick curtains drawn over, and beyond those, a glint of something on the floor that Bran couldn't quite make out. Beyond that, the hall fell into darkness, and could quite possibly go on forever.

Bran turned to Stephen, and barely heard Will's next gasping words amongst the gasps and confusion from the Stantons and the Drews at the strangeness of the hall. He heard enough. "…water… need… put me in it…"

The word _water_ made one fact, at least, slip comfortably into place. The glint on the floor was the glint of light reflecting from water. Bran looked over to it, and Stephen quickly followed his gaze and came to the same conclusion. With a brief nod, the two ran forwards, and lowered Will to the ground. Will weakly pulled at his torn shirt, and Bran understood enough. He helped him peel off the sodden garment, in a move that would have made him blush profusely in any other circumstance, and then he helped Stephen lower Will into the water.

Will cried out as the water hit the open wound, and Bran jerked to pull him out again, but Will shook his head. Bran stepped down into the water with him, and supported his neck, keeping his head out as he tread water, unsure of how deep the pool was. The water around the wound started to steam, and Bran could barely bring himself to look at Will's chest, the blood sickening him, or, rather, the idea of Will being hurt so badly turning his stomach.

Stephen slid quickly into the water, treading water too, to support Will's feet and allow the water more complete access to the wound. Both had gone in regardless of the strange steam rushing from Will's chest to drift soundlessly on the long journey up to the ceiling, a fact Bran only just registered, but pushed away to concentrate on Will. Will's face was drawn, and coated in sweat.

After a minute that could have been months, Will finally gasped, "Enough", and without looking at each other, Bran and Stephen dragged Will out of the water and lay him on the side. Bran didn't move from Will's shoulders, and knelt by the weird pool, pulling Will up to rest against him. He adjusted Will so he was sat up against him, as Will was breathing too hard to do it for himself, and was surprised to notice two things. One, his clothes and hair were completely dry, even though he'd been mostly submerged in the water, and two, Will wasn't hurt anymore. His skin was pale, as if it had never been marked, and Bran had to resist the urge to drift his fingers along the healed skin as if to reassure himself that Will was okay, still all there.

"Oh, my god," Stephen breathed, and didn't resist the urge – he touched Will's chest gently, appraisingly, and Bran flushed, realising he wouldn't have been quite so clinical about it. Stephen looked at the water, and back at Will. "Is this an Old One thing, or…?"

Will smiled ruefully, and it was a smile Bran had seen on Will before, but had disliked. There was absolutely no humour in the smile. Bran privately thought it betrayed the whole concept of smiling, and vowed to take Will to task for it. Later. When Will was better, and the world was running chronologically again.

"The water's from the end of Atlantis," Will said. "Boiled by the destruction of the heart of the world."

Bran shivered at the finality of the tone, and the creepiness of the words. "Whatever it is," he said simply, "I'm glad of it."

"And it's an Old One thing," Will said, pulling a face, "more's the pity." A look of sadness flickered across Will's face, and was gone, but Bran saw it long enough to understand. _The lives I could save otherwise, _Will's face had said, and Bran's heart ached.

"What's going on?"

Bran and Stephen turned their heads at the sound of Roger Stanton's voice, frightened into an almost feminine high pitch, but Will didn't turn his head. He kept looking straight ahead, casually, as he climbed to his feet as easily as if he hadn't been horribly injured only minutes before. Bran climbed up awkwardly at the same time, brushing imaginary dirt from his knees as he did.

Will tensed, and twitched, and then turned to face his family, his eyes cold and his face tilted upwards. Then his courage fell, and he looked away, and then he looked back again at them, amassed like a band of carol singers, faces lit weirdly by the otherworldly light that illuminated the hall. He sighed, then shivered, and then absently lifted one arm towards the empty fireplace.

The fireplace spluttered into life, orange flames licking up and bathing everyone in a more normal light. Will inhaled, and then exhaled slowly, a dark and very old look on his face.

Bran stepped forward then, and touched Will on the wrist, a gesture Stephen acknowledged and the others missed in their stupor of disbelief. The touch seemed to shake Will out of his confoundedness, and he smiled awkwardly, spreading his hands, and a younger look took hold of his face. "Maybe," Will said, feeling ill at ease, as he fixed a look on his parents, "you'd all better sit down."

Stephen took the lead, sitting cross-legged on the dark floor, his face registering surprise as he did. "The ground's soft," he exclaimed, which surprised the others into trying it out. Only Bran remained on his feet, wanting to support Will, and Will sent him a small nod of gratefulness.

"This might take a while to explain," Will said, starting to pace, "but time's not the issue. In fact, time is something we're about to have an awful lot of if I can't figure this out."

He stared at his family, perplexed, and awkward, and inhaled and exhaled again.

"Will," spluttered Alice Stanton, her gentle face haunted with a grey cast, obviously having just regained the ability and composure to speak, "what are you?"

Will winced at that, and Bran understood the wince. It was the use of the word _what_. _What_ implied that Will wasn't human, was an 'it', a monster, an item, a creation, not a human.

"I'm an Old One," Will said, staring at her. "The last of the Old Ones, if you must be pedantic about it. Watchman of the Light. All the stories you never told me. True."

Alice blinked, shaking her head, and said, "So if you're…" She floundered for the word, gestured, and then obviously decided the gesture was enough. "Then who's he?"

It took Bran a few moments to realise that Alice was looking at him, and he looked at Will in confusion. "I'm no one," Bran started, his voice cracking, and then faltering into silence as he saw the guilty expression on Will's face. "Aren't I?" He finished, his voice quiet, his eyes locked with Will's. Will shook his head so imperceptibly that Bran's legs waned beneath him, and he had to suddenly fight to stay upright.

"I never meant to do this," Will said, suddenly despairing, somehow looking anywhere but at Bran, but also looking directly at him. Bran knew Will was hurting, but couldn't stop commanding, "Tell me."

'_I'm sorry,_' Will mouthed, before turning back to his mother.

"He's King Arthur's son. The Pendragon. My greatest charge."

Bran swallowed. It tasted of betrayal.

"I wanted to tell you," Will said, ostensibly to his family and friends, but Bran knew the truth – it was directed at him. He let his legs fail, and sank to the ground, the words rolling around in his head. _King Arthur's son. Pendragon._ And, most sharply, _My greatest charge_.

"King Arthur-" Laughing, Simon Drew got to his feet, his expression callous and tone mocking. "I think you've been drinking too much happy juice. Nice joke, guys, lovely special effects, but if you think we're going to believe this-"

"Simon," Barney said suddenly, his small face pinched, and his voice clear. "It's true. It's all true. Don't you remember?" Barney got to his feet, and started to pace. "Gumerry, and the Light and the Dark, and _Will_…" Barney looked at Will, suddenly upset, miserable. "And you made us _forget_."

"It's for the best," Will said. "Forgetting."

"The best for who," Bran said. He knew his voice was harsh, but he couldn't bring himself to tone it down.

Will turned to him, angry. "If you're insinuating it would be best for me, you're sorely mistaken, _Pendragon_."

Bran got up, incensed, and crossed the floor to him, trying to ignore the disorientation that plagued his skin as the floor changed for his senses from the softness to sit on, to the hardness to walk on. "Then make us remember what we've forgotten," he said, an arrogance to his tone beyond his normal slightly overconfident edge.

"Like it's that easy," Will muttered under his breath, loud enough for everyone to hear, but he crossed the floor to the three doors, and then stood in front of them, perplexed.

"What's the matter?" Barney said, hurrying over to stand by Will, his eyes keenly glancing between the three doors. Barney's comfortableness with going over to Will was contagious; everyone got to his or her feet after him, to glance at the doors.

Will shuffled for a second, and then looked at Barney wryly.

"I may not know what's going on," Jane said, unsteadily, "but I know that face." She smiled a little. "He's forgotten."

Along with the arrogance and confusion conflicting within Bran, annoyance slid up unwillingly at her utterance. He knew that expression too, just as well as her, and if she thought she knew him better than her, she was wrong, and just in that moment, that exact moment, at that cross reaction to Jane's words, he realised just what was making him so cross at Will.

It wasn't the fact that Will had told him he was King Arthur's son. Bran, in a strange, light-headed sort of way, hadn't been as entirely surprised as he thought he should have. Will had warned him that he'd forgotten something large, and just as adamantly told Bran he wouldn't make him forget anything again.

No. Who Bran was really mad at was himself. And he had only just realised why.

He was only sodding in love with the git.

_In love with Will, _his brain corrected, and he brushed aside the correction. _And not 'soddingly' so, although there's another word beginning with 'sod' that you've been curious about for a long time now, if you're going to be absolutely honest with yourself._

Bran quietly began to freak out as all the fragments in his brain clicked together. His blush at seeing Barney's artwork of them snuggled up in bed together. The familiar touches between them. And the strange way his insides had collapsed at eavesdropping on Will and Jane's conversation, and that tight confession of Will's, _By my troth, it is no addition to his wit, nor no great argument of his folly, for I will be horribly in love with him_.

Bran hadn't known what to think about hearing that, and hadn't quite been able to think since, a fact he knew he was never going to admit to Will, because it would open him up to a _lifetime_ of teasing.

_For I will be horribly in love with him_.

With a realisation that felt like burning, Bran suddenly knew, knew without Will having to tell him, that _that_ was why Will had been crying when they were in bed together. _Brain, _he admonished himself sharply, _do not start trying to illustrate that thought beyond the truth_. Will had been upset, and Bran had held him for a long time, his hands soft against the warmth of Will's skin, and the flutter of Will's heartbeat, and that must have been the moment Will realised he was in love with him, with _him_, and…

_Oh, bloody hell, you've sodding been in love with him for longer than today,_ Bran realised in disgust, and then forced himself to admit the real truth. The one he'd never admitted to his conscious self, the truth his subconscious kept hidden in the flutter of fragmentary dreams and memories. _Will's the reason you even went to the same university and enrolled on the same course._

Now, of course, Bran was even more annoyed, but now mostly at himself. Not that he was going to admit it.

"No," Will was indignantly saying, in a tone Bran knew acutely meant that Will was lying, and then he wondered at his ability to accurately understand every tone of Will's voice, and then he pushed those thoughts aside. "I know roughly where they are. And they should remove all forgotten memories…"

Bran forced himself to stop wallowing, and dwell on it all later, and tried to ignore that last buzzing thought. _You were mad when you overheard Will's confession, not because he hadn't told you, although that was part of it, but because he said it was _horrible _to be in love with you._

"All right, Will," Roger Stanton said firmly, moving forwards to grab his youngest son's arm, "Joke's over. And it hasn't been funny one bit, but I realise you'd want your fun on your birthday, so we're willing to overlook this prank-"

"Got it," Will said, interrupting his father, sliding forward and opening the second door.

Bran couldn't wallow any more, as his brain was too busy admiring the sight, and not, for once, ogling Will's backside, _which to be honest is what you do, so you can stop lying about that now too_.

The door had opened into deep space.

The sky stretched as far as the eye could see, a thick, velvety blackness that reminded Bran of the thick curtains at his da's church, the heavy ones that almost suffocated Fainche Jones a few Christmases ago when they fell down on her. Spots of light broke up the thick blackness that was almost too black to look at, burning in the shorter end of the spectrum, and lower down…

Bran's voice caught in his throat, and he gasped out a startled sound that didn't make any sense.

Lower down, a different light glowed, a hazy mess of greens and blues, and Bran blinked away tears that came from seemingly nowhere. _Iesu Grist_, he thought suddenly, so fast that he couldn't tear back the words. He was vaguely ashamed he'd sworn so much over the last couple of days, but even that shame was insignificant

It was the Earth itself, turning inexorably slowly in front of them, millions, billions of life forms teaming across the planet, unaware of anything, unaware of everything, unaware of the strangely silent people watching them from a magic door on the hillside of rural Buckinghamshire.

"Will," Alice Stanton said, and she was crying openly.

"There are compensations," Will said, brokenly, "for the burden of my task." He said nothing else, just watched his family and friends get lost in the sight before him, and the sight of Will just stood there, watching his family watching the Earth broke the trance Bran was under, and he stepped forward.

With a calmness that held him upright and strong, Bran touched Will gently on the arm. He gazed up at Will, even though they were the same height, somehow Will was taller in this place, and then, as if it was the most natural thing in all the universe, he leaned up, and touched his mouth to Will's.

The kiss was short, not because Bran didn't want anything more, but because his brain hadn't quite caught up with everything that happened, and he didn't want to get even more confused. It was a promise, and he held Will's gaze as he pulled back, a content smile spreading on Bran's face. Bran squeezed Will's hand, and stepped back, nodding to encourage Will on.

Will nodded back, an expression on his face that Bran couldn't quite decipher at first, until he realised he'd seen it before on Will, a thousand, million times, just briefly every time, but there. Definable. _Love_. Theirs.

Giddy, but pushing it down, Bran jerked his head at the open door. Will nodded again, and composed his face into a more business-like expression. He reached his hand out into the blackness, and he spoke something in a soft language that sounded almost like Latin and Welsh mixed together, but wasn't, it was harsher but softer all at the same time, and it sang in Bran's heart that a refrain he should know so well.

A small soft feathery light splashed around Will's hand suddenly, illuminated Will's face with a bright white glow. Will turned, almost giddy himself with the glow, and looked directly at Bran. "I promised never to remove your memories again, Bran Pendragon," Will shouted, and Bran wondered why he was shouting until he realised that there was a song sounding in the hall, a song deep and brilliant and millions of years old, and Bran realised it was the universe itself singing, and he thought, _this must be how Will sees the universe all the time_. "If I release this magic, you won't be able to forget. Are you certain?"

Caught up by the song, by everything, by the lingering fleeting feel of Will's mouth against his own, Bran shouted back, "Yes!"

"So let it be," Will shouted, and released the magic.

A white light engulfed them all then, even brighter than the light of the sun, but Bran couldn't close his eyes. A golden light accompanied it, and a soft cerulean, and a flash of silver. '_My son,_' a warm voice rumbled in his ear, and _'with Arthur's son she came out of the past'_ in a voice he knew more, and some words, like a poem, and then more words, like a riddle. And then he remembered.

The trip into the weird place, Will's world, of mirror mazes, and dead kings, and grey lands, and girls that threw flowers from windows. Of the death of Atlantis, and the forging of a crystal sword. Of a tree, bright on Midsummer's day. He heard himself crying out, "Cafall! Cafall!", and he saw Will's eyes as the first time he saw them, and wondered then if he'd loved Will from the very beginning, despite the resentment in his heart. And then there was more. He remembered the Dark, and for a minute he couldn't breathe, remembering a judgement that almost ended him. He remembered a train journey that transcended time and space, and he remembered magic, and fire on the mountain.

And Will. He remembered Will, just fragments of him, singing on the hill, walking with purpose, trying to bring Bran out of his self-imposed shell, still forging a friendship with Bran despite Bran's hostility towards the person he saw as the reason for Cafall's murder. He remembered their laughing conversations, and their dreamy adventures together, and hated himself for forgetting those times, the times that had made him the person he was today, the adventures that had given him the strength he used now. And he hated himself more when he remembered the choice, of which he took the coward's way out, despite learning Will's fate, his forever fate, to look after the world.

He came out of his stupor crying, crying endlessly, and realised everyone was looking at him. He must have taken the longest – he had more hidden memories, memories hidden by _Merlin_, Will's enigmatic mentor, who had led Bran into the adventures in the first place, teaching him the lines of a poem on a dreary summer day, on a day before Will arrived in his life and the summer started to blaze.

'_Yes,'_ Bran's heart sang, '_yes_.'

And without knowing quite what he was doing, Bran walked forwards, past all the faces lost in their own confusion of remembrances, and held his hand out into the deep velvet of space, and Will cried out as if scared Bran would be hurt by it, but he wasn't.

"_Eirias!"_ Bran cried. "_Eirias_!"

Bran turned back to Will, a triumphant glow on his face, even as he kept his arm extended into space. Their eyes held, and a blue light engulfed Bran's arm, and when Bran pulled his arm back in, and an invisible gust slammed the door to space shut with a too-loud _clunk, _there was a sword in his hand.

A crystal sword.

"Eirias," Will breathed, not knowing how Bran had done it, only knowing it was right. Eirias was needed.

"Eirias is the sword," Jane said, her voice fluttering in joy over the returned memory. "Oh, _Bran_."

Bran turned to her, the sword shimmering in his grip, and then turned back to Will, his head lifted even higher. He vaguely realised Will and he were the same height again.

"My lord?" Will said, his voice ghosting and reverent as he looked at Bran.

Bran looked at him. "This time loop could go on forever. But we're ending it," he said, his voice unwavering, "this time. And we're going to destroy the Dark forever." His eyes glinted with the memory of a regained conversation. "And ever."

Will didn't need to nod in agreement. His tone spoke it all. "Your will is my command." Then he smiled, and suddenly they were just Will and Bran again, best friends. Teenagers. "Let's go kick some Dark behinds."

Bran grinned, and hefted Eirias. "A_men_!"

Will grinned back, and Bran slid Eirias into the hilt that he hadn't realised had materialised on regaining Eirias, but had still somehow known was there. They were going to kick some Dark butt, save the beautiful universe they'd all just witnessed, and then… _then_ Bran was going to get down to the serious business.

Just _why_ Will thought being in love with him was horrible.


	6. Magic in the Daylight

**

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**

The Dust of Time

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_Summary: _Will struggles with his conscience, while struggling with the Darkest threat he's come up against so far - his own family's memories. Will/Bran Slash.

_Disclaimer: _"The Dark is Rising Sequence" does not belong to me, it belongs to Susan Cooper, the amazing Goddess that she is. This is written by a fan, for the fans, and no money has exchanged hands what-so-ever.

_Note: _This is just a short little chapter, sort of a comic interlude if you will before the Dark-butt-kicking thing begins. :)

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Part Six: Magic in the Daylight

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They emerged into the daylight with a burst of energy that surprised Bran. The whole world seemed somehow so much bigger, and clearer, and sharper, and yet it was all focussed on the cool length of sword that sat comfortably in his hand, and the boy-that-was-a-man stood next to him.

Bran was vaguely aware of the rest of the family and the Drews skidding out of the darkness to amass in a stunned heap on the hillside. Will turned without having to look back to check to see if everyone was out of the dark hall that stretched into the middle of the earth, with his hands outstretched. The large doors slid quietly shut, and then disappeared, leaving them on the grassy hillside, snow-darkening clouds swelling above them, the song of the universe still ringing in their ears.

It was probably that melody that had kept the others quiet since the retrieval of all their lost memories. Even Bran's instinct to rant and rail and scream at Will for the hidden memories was tempered by the song, and Bran suspected it wasn't even magic. It was just music. The best music in the whole world. Music held more power than magic, Bran firmly believed it to be true.

"Right," Will said vaguely, and then turned to Bran with a joyous look on his face.

"Maggie," they said at the same time, laughing giddily rather than deal with the odd feelings bubbling up in both of them, and ignoring the fear of what the others were really feeling.

"You saved us," a thin, reedy female voice said suddenly, and Bran watched an expression flicker on Will's face that made his blue-green eyes churn into a storm. "Before. When those figures of black came. And when the man on the horse..." Mary faltered, her fingers flexing awkwardly.

Will just looked at her, still with that strange tallness in his bearing, but he spoke no response. He turned to Bran, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "I'll go look for her, shall I?" Will said, with an impish quirk of an eyebrow, and Bran was just working up some sort of response when Will stepped back, and then leapt into the air.

But Will didn't come back to ground. He kept going _higher_, and then there was a blur, and then a delighted _caw_! Bran shielded his eyes from the brightness of the sun on the clouds, but found himself laughing in amazement, in joy, in sheer giddiness of life.

"A bird!" Barney Drew sang, skipping up to stand next to Bran, amazement on his face. "He's _flying_!"

Bran looked at Barney, the joy on his face. Barney had remembered just from being in the room. He was... he was... Bran fought the jumble of memories for the right word, and used it. "You know, for a Seer, your sight is pretty, um, amazing," he said, sarcastically.

Barney narrowed his eyes. "You know, any claim you have to the throne of Britain expired hundreds of years ago," he said.

"So?" Bran said, his arms folded as he watched the-bird-that-was-Will fly.

Barney kicked him in the calf, grinning. "I can't be beheaded for kicking an heir to the throne, is so."

"No, but I can tickle you to the ground, Seer or no," Bran said, moving one hand through the air as if to tickle Barney. Barney giggled without being tickled, and hopped out of the way.

"My brother is no Seer!" Simon appeared at Barney's elbow, and he bodily wrenched Barney backwards. Barney pulled his arm out of Simon's grasp with an angry look, and clenched his fists in Simon's direction, only for Jane to break in between them.

She was crying.

"Yes, Simon," she said, looking into Simon's face, her eyes searching, "yes, he is."

She looked at Bran quickly, and then gathered Barney to her.

Simon looked as if he was going to say something, or start something, until a bird alighted in the space between them, and promptly turned back into Will.

"Show-off," Bran said, a little more fondly than he meant to.

Will blinked hawkishly at him, and then dusted off his knees. "She's nearing the house. We'd better run."

"What about them," Bran said, without looking at the family, all blinking as if still unable to see, but he recognised the blinking from Barney's face earlier – they were about to start getting cogent again. And it probably wouldn't be good, especially if there was going to be a hurry necessary.

"Right," Will said, his voice cracking on the syllable, before he turned to the family, upset but resolved. "Do any of you think you're going to be able to handle this?"

Barney stepped forwards quickly, and Jane with him. Simon looked torn, and stepped back with a downcast look and an inability to look at anyone. Stephen stepped forward immediately, and then, to Will's obvious surprise, Robin and Paul stepped forward with a grim determination.

Bran watched as Will swallowed hard, obviously not expecting it, and Will was actually stunned for a second.

"Right," he said, again, as if it solved everything. He held up his hand, and then was stopped by Stephen.

"Don't," Stephen said.

Will turned in confusion to his oldest brother.

"It'll hurt you too much," Stephen added. "So many people that you-"

Will's face stilled in his confusion, before breaking into a surprised smile. "I wasn't going to make them forget," he said softly, "but thank you for your concern. I promise this won't hurt them."

He turned back to his family. Bran noticed Will's parents almost twitching, as if willing themselves to step forward, but unable to. Alice was crying, holding onto Mary and Barbara, and Roger was holding her. Will held out his hands, and locked gazes with his parents, horribly regretful and sad.

Will spoke a liquid sentence in that beautiful but eerie Latin/Welsh language, and the family froze in position, a glazed expression on their faces. "This is on one of the Old paths. The Dark cannot harm them here. Would that the Old Ones had tramped over every square inch of the world..." His face held longing as he looked at their frozen bodies, and then he turned away, decisively, obviously deciding that was his last look at his parents and other siblings.

_Eyes, look their last._

Bran looked at them hard, swallowed, and turned with Will.

"Maggie came to our house before, the last two times, and delivered a box. We need it," Will said, and Bran realised it was for the others benefits.

"What's in it?" Paul asked, despite himself, adjusting to this new world with surprising adeptness.

"You'll see when we get it," Will said. "Let's go."

They ran with urgency, a pelting, joyful kind of laugh that sang in their step. They had the rhythm of the entire universe behind them, fading in their ears, but still there. Bran noticed Will clenching his hands, obviously to stop himself from turning around, and on impulse he reached down and grabbed one of Will's hands as they ran.

Bran knew Will had turned his head to look at him, but he kept running straight ahead, Eirias lying easily against his hip, as if it always had. And then he knew – it always had. It was supposed to have been taken with the Signs, into the beyond with all the other Old Ones, but it hadn't gone. The sword's essence had remained at Bran's side, waiting for the physical aspect of the sword to be returned to it. But how? Why hadn't the essence died away? Or gone with the rest of the Old Ones?

Unless... Fear gripped Bran's heart, and he instinctively sped up, forcing Will to speed up with him. As soon as they were a good couple of metres ahead of the others, Bran brought up his theory in horror. "Will, why do I have Eirias again?" he asked between breaths, wishing he'd exercised more at uni. "It should have gone beyond with the other Old Ones."

"That's what I'm worried about," Will said, his voice low, and then the others had caught up, and they couldn't speak again for a while. They slowed in front of the house, and Bran noticed Will hadn't let go of his hand, but didn't remove it himself until they saw Maggie approach them, a box in her hand.

She seemed surprised to see the seven of them waiting at the doorstep, but carried on walking towards them, as Bran suddenly realised the fact that there _were_ seven of them. Will, plus a circle of six. He was just contemplating the possible impact of that when Maggie caught up with them.

Maggie smiled and bobbed a curtsey at Will, all ready to begin the same spiel as the first time, until she noticed the sword hanging on Bran's hip, and her mouth snapped closed. "I see," she said, eventually. "How many times have you used the dust?"

"Twice," Will said, taking the box from her.

"I see," she said, again. "And my request?"

"Still denied," Will said. Maggie looked upset, until Will added, "Would it do any good?"

Maggie looked confused.

"I'd return you to the past, and then possibly loop again, and you'd demand to be sent back, and then I would, and there'd be lots of you, roaming time. You of all people know I am not allowed to do that," Will said.

Maggie sniffed. "The Dust of Time is your help, Watcher. The glove is your hint. I am not allowed to say else. You know the rules of foresight better than I."

"Patchy, at best," Will said, with a small, tight grin.

"Come find me once you've broken this loop," Maggie said. "I'll be waiting."

"I may not," Will said, his head level, his eyes almost matte, lifeless. A silent communication passed between the two, and she looked around at the group, guaging the numbers.

"I see," Maggie said, a third time, in her polite stiff voice, until her face changed, and her voice was soft and like warm honey as she said, "Take care, Guardian of the Pendragon, Watchman of the Light," and more warmth as she said, "Sign-seeker" with a smile.

It sounded too final to Bran, and he drew himself up as high as he could. Maggie looked at him, and she looked quite sad but amused. "Lord Pendragon," she said, ironically, with another anxious look at Eirias and a curtsey, and she turned and walked away.

"Sign-seeker?" Stephen questioned. Bran looked up at the oldest Stanton, the question plain on his face that he was curious to why Will and Maggie sounded like they were saying goodbye forever, but a knowing expression on his face too.

"Mm, I had to collect the six signs," Will said, "wood, bronze, iron: water, fire, stone," he elaborated, with the air of someone quoting. "Starting on my eleventh birthday."

Stephen winced. "You mean the year I sent you that hideous mask..." Stephen faltered. "Oh, god, I did. I sent you a horrible mask. I'm so sorry!"

"It's all right," Will said, amicably.

"Oh, that's how they used me to send a message," Stephen said, and Bran suddenly recalled their earlier conversation about forgetting. "I see. I'm sorry I couldn't handle it before."

"I could have handled it," Paul said, suddenly, an almost stubborn look on his face. "I really could have."

Will winced openly. "Sorry," he said. "I was just scared of what people would say when I came out. And then Stephen went and confirmed my fear."

"Oy," Stephen said, and then with a shrewish look said, "You were planning on coming out to us, eh?"

Will gaped at him for a moment, then regained his composure, except for the blush on his cheeks. "Coming out as a _wizard_, you dolt," he said, cheeks flaming quite brightly.

"So you weren't planning to come out come out," Stephen said.

"As in come out, come out wherever you are?" Will said, completely lost.

"Come out as gay, dolt," Stephen mimicked Will's earlier putdown.

Will's mouth worked silently.

"Okay, I was thinking earlier that if Will got dumbstruck, then it'd be reassuring," Robin broke in, his dark eyes alight with some sort of repressed humour. Bran thought he knew the expression as one he'd caught on Will, when Will was planning something. _Poor Will, in for a lifetime of teasing. _Then, _If he lets them keep their memories, that is._ "But I don't know if I want the only teenager in the world capable of stopping all evil speechless. It's a bit worrying."

"I'm fine," Will said.

"So you're not denying it, I notice," Paul said, his eyes twinkling in the same way as his twin's. _Ha,_ Bran thought_, Will deserves all the teasing they can dish out, really_.

Will made as if to say something, and then flung his arms about, annoyed. "No."

"No as a denial, or...?" Paul said, working hard not to let the giggles come out.

"No as in not a denial," Will ground out.

"Phew," Stephen said, flicking a look at Bran that Bran couldn't decipher before looking back at Will. "I thought you were going to do the repressed homosexual thing forever."

Then Bran realised. It was an opening, for him to say something. So he took hold of the bravery that had thrilled within him on regaining Eirias with both hands, and took the opening.

"I don't know," Bran said amicably, "I've always found the repressed homosexual thing quite fun." He grinned at Stephen. "Anyway, I'm starved. Memory serves that there might be some food in here." Bran smiled at a stunned Will, then in a move of courage – or perhaps one of those more garden-variety brands of stupid – smacked his friend on the bottom, and sauntered into the house.

Laughing, Robin and Paul followed him in, followed by a grinning Barney and Jane, who winked at Will and stepped into the kitchen.

Will stared at their retreating backs, lost, and then up at Stephen, his mouth still moving like a flailing fish. "Did he just-" Will started, and then stopped, still staring at the house.

"Come on," Stephen said. "You can't save the world on an empty stomach."

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To be continued. 


	7. One Sign of Fire

**The Dust of Time

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**

_Summary: _Will struggles with his conscience, while struggling with the Darkest threat he's come up against so far - his own family's memories. Will/Bran Slash.

_Disclaimer: _"The Dark is Rising Sequence" does not belong to me, it belongs to Susan Cooper, the amazing Goddess that she is. This is written by a fan, for the fans, and no money has exchanged hands what-so-ever.

"_Much Ado About Nothing_" is also not mine. Duh.

Neither is _Clueless _or _Pride and Prejudice_ or _Colin Firth_. Sigh.

The Deer incident, however, is something I stole from... my own life. I'm so deeply ashamed...

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Author's Notes: This chapter took so long because I had to finish my degree. Sorry. But in return, I've made it about 1000 words longer than the first chapter. Hope that makes up for it. One chapter left, peeps, and perhaps an epilogue. Thanks for the support so far! Without your lovely comments, I'd probably have stopped this at chapter one, so it's officially All Your Fault that it's gotten this far. 

Author's Notes 2: As a flashback to one of the previous chapters, it's 4:25am that I've finished this, and yet again, it's GETTING LIGHT AGAIN. What I do for the pursuit of fanfiction, I don't know...

Author's Notes 3: Also, did I mention I finished my degree? BOOYAH! Which probably explains the amount of snogging and groping in this chapter. I'm celebrating vicariously!

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**Part Seven: One Sign of Fire**

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_The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer._

Fridtjof Nansen

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After they'd got back to the house, no one seemed to know what to do. Will explained that they had to wait for his birthday; otherwise the Dust might not work. Bran didn't fully accept Will's explanation, especially as it contradicted something Will had said before that Bran couldn't quite remember, but without the memory of exactly _what_ it contradicted, Bran knew from experience that arguing with Will was futile, unless one had specific dates and times. Really, it was ridiculous; Will ought to be a lawyer, not an anthropologist-in-training. 

They lay around the living room, in alternating positions, and chatted about this and that as Jane, Barney, Will and Bran caught Paul, Robin and Stephen up to date with what had happened in the past, with the Signs and the Greenwitch and the Chalice and the Grey King and the last great fight at the tree…

As Barney finished the tale and of John Rowland's difficult decision, Bran sat by the fire, near enough Will to watch him. Will was sat with the box on across his crossed knees, the glove on top of the lid. It was a left glove, Bran knew because of the stitching, and he shuffled closer as Will pulled the glove down over his wrist, and the strange scar burnt below his hand.

As Will rolled the glove up, and flexed his fingers, Bran grabbed hold of Will's forearm, and pulled it closer, his fingers tracing the circle and cross slowly. When he looked up at Will, he knew his fingers were still on the sign, but he couldn't bring himself to pull them away. They were stark white against Will's skin, and Will's skin was warmer, and Bran found himself lazily tracing the sign, even as his gaze met Will's. Their faces were so close, but neither moved, just looking at each other.

"You called this a Sign?" Bran said, eventually, moving his mouth deliberately slowly, pronounced, all too aware that Will's mouth was only inches away from his own. From the way Will's gaze darted to Bran's lips, just for a moment, brought out the predator within Bran. With confidence brimming within him, he smiled, his lips curving upwards only slightly.

"Hmm-mmm." Will rather encouragingly seemed to have lost the power of speech. "From the candles, when I was looking for the Signs, and I was looking for the Sign of Fire-"

A giggle in the background distracted Will, and Will turned to look, but Bran knew it was Jenny, and didn't turn his head. "-and the lady," Will said, distracted. "The lady. She said-"

Will's eyes widened, a reaction Bran knew well enough was his "eureka!" expression. Bran let go of Will's wrist, and casually leant forward, and leant one of his hands on Will's knee instead. Will inhaled, barely audible, but Bran thrilled at the reaction he now finally knew was because of him. It gave him such a sense of power, over the boy he loved, who had such magic, who could protect the whole world, but over whom Bran could have total mastery if he wished.

"What did you just eureka yourself into?" Bran asked, his voice low.

Will grinned. "A way to get us out of here. All I've got to do is check on the other Old Ones."

Bran was so surprised by Will's word, that he rocked back on his heel, and loosened the slight pressure of his hand on Will's knee, and Will used the slight pause to escape from Bran's proximity. Something inside Bran ached slightly, and he wondered for a moment – he'd had that fleeting feeling before, when Will pulled away from him, that Will was planning to distance himself further than that small physical distance.

He wanted to confront Will, but instead found himself asking, "You can do that?"

Will nodded, and got to his knees, shuffling in front of the fireplace. Bran was slowly aware of the others quietening down and moving their attention to him, but his attention was fixated on the confidence of the young man in front of him. The young man who had helped them save the world and stood by while everyone forgot. The young man who Bran was in love with. The young man who wasn't young after all.

"That's what I'm checking," Will clarified. "If I can get in touch with them, something's wrong. They had Eirias with them, so you shouldn't have been able to get it back, but if you could retrieve that…" Will trailed off, and Bran was about to demand that he finish a sentence – a somewhat absent talent of Will's at the best of times – when Bran actually took in Will's whole stance as well as his slightly neutral expression.

Will's shoulders were hunched in, and he'd brought all his limbs quite close in to his body. He seemed small. Afraid.

Robin had been right before, that Will speechless was a terrifying thing. Will _scared_ was even worse. But then, almost as if sensing Bran's thoughts, Will arched his back, stretching, and held out a hand, splaying out the fingers wide.

Bran opened his mouth to say something, but even he was unsure what he thought would be helpful in the circumstances, and when Will's mouth open, and a liquid language slid out, Bran's mouth slid shut, and he listened. He knew that language. Will had sung with it, out in the valley in Wales, and it was like the mountains themselves were singing with him. Pressure peaked behind Bran's eyes, and he didn't know why, but then he was crying, silently, the tears falling unbidden. For some reason, the whole thing was just so desperately _sad_. Bran felt like he was mourning, and didn't want to know what he was mourning.

Will spoke something else, something soft, and then the fire leapt up higher, shooting up into the chimney. Bran looked closer at the dancing flames, and then gasped.

Deep within the flames was an image, of starlight, and a waterfall in the background, and a rainbow, and then… People. Lots of people and faces. A dark face with a wide, white grin. An old woman with kind crinkled cheeks. A handsome, strong man with a chiselled jaw and calloused hands. A sallow face. Some faces he thought he almost knew, a few he'd dreamed about, and some he didn't know, but who had the same sad cast to their faces as Will had. Bran thought he remembered a fragment of a memory _We Old Ones have a certain look about us_ and didn't know whether it was a memory, or someone else's thought.

Then the faces blurred by quickly, like Will was flicking through the pages of a photograph album, and then the flickering slowed, and stilled, on two faces.

Bran inhaled, hard, and his lungs suddenly burned. He knew those faces. He knew one of them with a sudden, aching clarity. The thick brows, the dark eyes, the strong beard. His father, King Arthur, the one who he'd rejected. And beside him, a man who looked slightly older, slightly craggier, with thick deep set lines on his face, and wickedly alive eyes, but his eyes were _frozen_, frozen in place, and Bran felt the heat that was behind his eyes swoop to his stomach, and he was almost physically sick.

The bile rising into Bran's throat seemed to break him from his reverie, and for a second Will looked to be completely hypnotised by the image, but when Bran made a small sound in the back of his throat, Will blinked, startled, and waved his hand.

The image disappeared, and the flames dwindled down to back where they were, after spurting out a little into the room – a brief symbol of a circle quartered by a cross – before that faded away too. "_One Sign of Fire you have with you already_," Will whispered, shaking his head hard as if in disbelief.

Bran frowned at the strange words, wondering if he'd heard them right. "What?"

Blinking, Will slowly turned to Bran. "I meant, they're stuck. Stuck out of time and out of space, but not beyond yet, either."

Bran frowned. It wasn't the truth, but Bran would bitch slap the truth out of Will later. "How is that…"

"…possible?" Will frowned. "I don't know."

"You mean, you think you might know, but you don't know for sure." Paul's voice rang out, accusing. Will turned to him, and looked guilty. "I may not know all of your secrets, but I know _you_, Will."

"I know," Will said, his voice suddenly small. "I think they can only move on when they have everything. All the objects of power." Will couldn't maintain eye contact with any of them, and was for some reason staring down at his left wrist.

Bran frowned. "The sword?"

Will looked up at that. "That would be my guess," he said, almost briskly. "Somehow, they must have dropped it. Tomorrow, when we use the Dust, I'll use it instead to open a pathway to where the Old Ones are. We'll send Eirias through the void, to the Old Ones, and it should… complete the connection, as it were… and they should be able to move on." Will smiled at Bran. "Good thing we had you. I doubt the lost sword would have come to any but you."

"That's fate for you," Bran said, and then frowned, troubled. "Or maybe the Old Ones knew this was coming, and so engineered us to be in this position. Jane, didn't you say you came to the same uni as us because of that Merriman chap?"

"Yes, I did," Jane said, her voice croaky, as if she hadn't used it for a while. Her pale eyes were shining with worry, and she bodily pulled Barney a little closer.

"So maybe he already had us all arranged like chess pieces," Bran said, a little bitterly.

Will scooted away from the fire, a distant look still on his face as he shook his head. "Merriman thought it was all over," Will said, "why would he feel the need to manipulate humanity when his job defeating the Dark was so that humanity would be free to make its own choices?"

"I don't know, maybe the fact that he's obviously manipulated you into sprouting his ideologies," Bran said, sniffing in annoyance. The whole situation was probably only just getting to him, and his head was throbbing, and Will's reluctance to give them answers even _when_ they knew the truth was irritating. More than irritating.

Will looked at Bran, his mouth working silently for a second. "_What_?"

"Or maybe it's you," Bran said. "Maybe he's trained you to manipulate us, because you've obviously forgotten we're your _friends_, your _family_, and you could just _ask_ us to do things rather than poke us in the right direction with your clever words and enigmatic actions."

"Bran-" Jane protested, uselessly.

"He's got a point," Stephen said, his voice soft.

"Gang up on me, then, why don't you?" Will said, wincing at the sulkiness of his tone.

"We'd need all of us to subdue you, and even then we'd fail," Bran said. It was like he couldn't help himself, but Bran knew, even if this was something like that lodestone, one that compelled him to say bad things, that his words had a source… Bran's own subconscious.

"But that's…" Will was flustered again. "Huh?"

"Clueless doesn't work, Will," Bran said, realising a little of his frustration was still because he was lingering on Will's words from the previous Loop. _…for I will be horribly in love with him…_

"You seem to be grappling well enough with being clueless on your own," Will said, his voice rising.

"All right, you two, outside to cool down!" Robin got to his feet, eyes blazing.

Bran felt a surge of jealousy in his chest, that Robin was ordering them around, and then realised he was only annoyed because Robin thought he could order _Will_ around, and Will was much too special to be ordered around like a common dogsbody..

_All right,_ Bran accepted, _maybe my bad mood is _entirely_ because Will thinks it's horrible to be in love with me._

"Maybe he's right," Will said, his voice subdued. He got to his feet, but didn't help Bran up like he normally would have. Seething, Bran got to his feet and stomped out of the house, without looking at Will.

He knew Will was following, but he tramped around the outside of the house until he found a wall without windows. Even though the landscape stretched out, grey and oblivion inviting him to roam into the hills and not return to the madness, Bran felt somewhat safe here. Despite the miles of emptiness, where anybody might hide, he somehow knew at the same time, they would not be spied upon out here.

Will stomped around to face Bran, his face slightly reddened. Bran didn't know whether it was from annoyance, or the temperature. Will opened his mouth, struggled to find the right words, and failed.

"Cat got your tongue?" Bran said, snappishly. He knew was acting irregularly, but his brain couldn't seem to stop.

"Look, why are you being such a bitch?" Will said. Well, wailed, really. Bran blinked, and his mouth worked uselessly for a moment. Will, wailing? It boggled the mind, it really did.

"A bitch?! Me?" Bran shook his head. "I'm not-"

"Ever since you got Eirias back, you've been in this really half-baked potty mood-"

"Like you're one to talk!"

"Well, I know, I've had a lot on my mind, end of the world and all that sort of-"

"So because I'm not an Old One, I just had royal parents, I don't have weighty thoughts too? I remember what happened to us, Will, and what we went through, and God damn it, I'm just as worried about the Dark as you-"

"That's not what I was saying-"

"In fact, more so, because at last check _you_ were the only immortal in the building." Bran was breathing heavily as he stared down Will.

"God, don't you think I know that?" Will said, his voice loud, nearly a yell but much too controlled. "Don't you think I'd rather die so you wouldn't?"

Bran went quiet. "Don't."

Will frowned at him. "Don't what?"

"Die." Somehow, the mood became more solemn with Bran's quiet reply.

Will's frown deepened. "I didn't have any plan on it."

"Good," Bran said, fiercely. "Because you've got a Messiah Complex, you know you do, and sometimes that leads to martyrdom, and you'd better not be thinking about it."

"There you go again," Will said, stamping his foot a little, and then flushing from the shame of such a childish action.

"There I go again _what_?" Bran asked, perplexed.

"Leaping to odd conclusions and going from being quiet to loud and fast," Will said. "I'm worried. You never vacillate this much."

"Probably because normally the world's not bloody ending."

Will pulled a face. "There is that."

Bran flashed a smile that quickly died away. "It's my race that's on the line. Not yours. I'm allowed to get hormonal over it."

"Humanity is my race too," Will said, heavily.

Bran felt a small flush of shame. "I didn't mean to insinuate that-"

"-that I wasn't human?" Will smiled wryly. "I know."

Bran was still feeling the same flush of defiance. "Well, you're not though, are you? Otherwise-" Then he snapped his mouth shut as he realised what he was about to say.

Will's eyes narrowed, which Bran thought was in anger, until he recognised the expression. He'd more than once told Will in the past that his eyes displayed emotion too readily, and recently, Will had squinted when feeling vulnerable. "Otherwise what?" Will's voice was hollow.

Bran thought about it, and exhaled in indecision, and decided to come out with it. In a breathless whisper that made the words run together awkwardly, he looked down at his shoes, and said, "Well, in the previous loop… I overheard you and Jane…"

There was a pause so long that Bran looked up to see if Will was still there. It wouldn't have surprised him if Will had disappeared, but he was still stood there, a dull crimson tingeing his cheeks, his eyes wide and frozen. Bran was reminded of a deer at Magdalen College in Oxford. He'd gone there for a day trip with Will and Jane, and in surprise at the presence of _deer_ at a _uni_, had snapped a shot of the deer with his flash camera – and the flash had stunned the deer for a good minute, its dark glossy eyes wide and vacant. Bran had felt tremendous guilt then, and felt a similar guilt now, tinged with anger.

"Oh," Will said eventually, putting a lot of meaning into the empty syllable. He swallowed once, hard, and then the stunned look was gone, replaced by one of defiance. "Well, if you think I should have told you, before voicing it to Jane, then you're probably right. But I needed to hear it spoken before I accepted it, okay?" Will shifted then, betraying the part of him that was still a teenager. "If you're worried about how I'm going to react around you, just because I'm in-" Will struggled with the word for a moment, "-in love with you," he valiantly continued, "then you've got another think coming, because I'd never hurt you or invade your personal space-"

"Oh, you stupid _git_." Bran was still breathing heavily, annoyed. "And I kind of _want_ you to invade my personal space, that's sort of the point, really."

Will looked at him, frozen mid-rant.

"I love you," Bran said, softly, all trace of annoyance disappeared from his voice.

Will stared at him, unable to look away, the blues and greens in his eyes darkening.

"The personal space thing is not what's under consideration here," Bran continued, softly, getting the gradually increasing sensation that Will was genuinely confused.

"Then… what is under consideration? That I told Jane first rather than you?"

Bran shook his head. "I would have used her as a soundboard too, in your situation."

"Then…" Will floundered helplessly. "I have no idea what's going on. I've completely lost control of this whole situation, and it's… It's unfamiliar, I can tell you. I have the knowledge of a dead race, and knowledge of centuries of human history, and I know how to fly, or swim to the depths of the ocean, and summon creatures, and speak to the stars, but _you_-" Will closed his eyes and exhaled, if hurt, and then opened his eyes again, looking at Bran with a resigned expression. "If the book of Gramarye had you as its subject, it would have been a thousand times longer, and still come out as an incoherent jumble."

Bran didn't know what the book of Gramarye was. "I'm not annoyed that you're- Well, that you-" Bran swallowed, having trouble voicing the words. Will rolled his eyes, and Bran was frustrated, _damn it_, _as if he didn't have trouble with the word too_, and folded his arms. He forced the words out. "My problem is not that you're in love with me, which I think you know by now would be hypocritical of me, but that you think it's _horrible_ to be in love with me!"

Will blinked, as if he couldn't have been more shocked if Bran had pulled a blue whale out of his pocket and socked him around the head with it. Will blinked, a strange expression crossing his face, before he burst out laughing.

Bran made a noise of dissatisfaction, and shook his head. "What's so funny!" Bran said. "Laughing at me because of your oddness-"

Will couldn't stop laughing.

"Oh, fine, suit yourself," Bran ground out, then twisted on his heel to storm away.

He'd only gotten half a pace when a hand, large and warm and strong on his elbow caused him to turn back. Bran knew he looked ridiculous when he pouted, but he couldn't help pouting as Will bodily turned Bran to him. It took Will's fingers on Bran's chin to get Bran to look at Will, but when Bran saw Will's expression, his annoyance melted away.

Will was still smiling, an aftermath of the laughter, but there were other expressions on his face, ones Bran knew well. Love and acceptance and pride and relief and joy and despair but most of all love, love that shone with true force. "You're such an idiot."

Bran's heart fell at the words, and he wrenched in Will's grasp to run away, but Will's hand remained firm. A cocky, assured expression slid onto Will's face as he used his other arm to pull Bran closer until their faces were inches apart. Bran spluttered, but quietened as Will just smiled more widely.

"_I'm_ an idiot?" Bran spluttered, more out of habit than of a real desire to say it.

"Yeah." Will smiled mysteriously, and Bran was still annoyed, so he moved his foot to stamp on Will's. But Will was too fast for him, and stepped back.

"_Will_," Bran said, in what he hoped was a low and serious tone, but it came out cracked and frayed.

"It's from _Much Ado About Nothing_," Will said. "Shakespeare."

"Of course I know it's Shakespeare," Bran snapped, annoyed at the superiority of those who'd gone through the English education system, assuming the Welsh education system was lacking. "It's one of my favourite plays, in fact-"

Bran had meant to sound well-learned and pompous with that true statement, but then his voice faltered, and the colour rose in his cheeks. His gaze held Will's, and locked. His voice dropped to a whisper. "I am an idiot," he said, mortified. "Absolutely clueless. Oh god, I'm Alicia Silverstone." Jane had forced them to watch and re-watch _Clueless_ during their second term, and Bran had always on a subconscious level identified with Josh, the one who loved Alicia Silverstone's oblivious character Cher from afar, and was disturbed to find out that he was more like the superficial and dippy blonde than the suave Josh.

"Absolutely," Will agreed, the hand gripping Bran's elbow falling away, and Bran was about to protest the lack of warmth, until the hand moved to Bran's cheek. "But with better hair." One long, dark finger traced his jaw bone from his ear down to his chin, and Bran lost all powers of speech.

After a long pause, where they hung suspended in the moment for what could have been seconds or what might have been a millennium, and Bran was slowly beginning to understand how Will could possibly bear living forever, as Will began to speak again.

"They say I will bear myself proudly," Will said, in a ragged whisper, as his finger began to stroke Bran's cheek, almost as if on its own volition. "They say too that she will die rather than give any sign of affection." Will moved nearer slowly until their mouths were so close, Bran could almost feel Will's words before he heard them. "I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending."

"A marriage proposal so early in the relationship," Bran heard himself quipping. He was normally quick to be sarcastic, but this seemed to come from someone else, and not him, and Bran would not have believed he'd said, except it was his own mouth moving, his own voice speaking.

Will gave him a blinding smile. "They say the lady is fair-" He touched Bran on the cheek, below the eyelid, on his nose, on the temple. "Tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; 'tis so, I cannot reprove it. And wise…" The blinding smile may have faded, but it was still in Will's voice. "But for loving me. By my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly…"

"…for I will be horribly in love with her," Bran finished, his eyes wide as he realised exactly what it meant.

Will was in love with him. Will loved him _back_. Will didn't think it was horrible. And if the hand lazily stroking his back was any indication, and Will's eyes, hungrily trained on Bran's face, then Will maybe thought it might be a rather amazing thing to love Bran Davies.

Bran knew he could try and elucidate the myriad of sensations that flitted across his chest at the moment of realisation, he could try and find concrete words for the abstract sensations, but it was no use. Everything was out in the open. Words were pointless.

But Bran found himself speaking anyway. "If you're identifying with Benedict, does that make me Beatrice, because I'm not going to be the girl in this-"

"Bran," Will said, heavily, making Bran stop and focus on the blue-green eyes hovering near his own. "Shut up."

Bran opened his mouth to make some sort of protest at being ordered around, but then happily found said mouth being occupied in quite gleefully kissing Will back. And they continued, for a moment, until the need to breathe became an issue, and Bran pulled back gratefully, to gulp down oxygen.

Will obviously took it as a bad sign, because he flinched, as if he was going to move away. With a growl, Bran moved both of his hands into Will's hair, and for a moment, Will's eyes closed and he exhaled rapidly.

When Will spoke, his voice was ragged, "Bran-"

And it was enough. With a sound that broke from the back of his throat, Bran pulled Will's face closer, and touched his mouth to Will's. Will's mouth moved slightly under his, warm and with just the right amount of friction, and Bran realised someone was moaning- and it wasn't him.

After what may have been a second, or maybe an eternity, Bran pulled away slightly to get his breath, his lower lip still brushing Will's, and that's when he realised he hadn't closed his eyes – he and Will were still gaze-locked. And he couldn't look away. He just couldn't.

This time, it was Will's move again, and he grabbed Bran's shoulders and pushed him backwards. Bran knew his back was scraping against the wall of the house, and splinters were pushing through the material of his shirt and trousers, but at that moment, he didn't care. He might have even gladly volunteered for another war with the Dark at that moment. Will's mouth was on his, demanding and searching, and this time Bran closed his eyes and surrendered to the kiss, all thoughts of disturbing things gone from Bran's sky. Will was in love with him, and didn't think it was horrible, and that was enough, it was _everything_.

After what was probably a minute, with no sign of stopping, and with Will's hands roaming on their own, Bran let his own hands move from Will's hair to his shoulders, and then drifted to his sides, not wanting Will's hands to have all the fun. Will pressed his strong body into Bran's slight one, at almost just the wrong amount of pressure, which gave way to become just the _right _amount of pressure. When his right hand ghosted across Will's hip, Will's mouth broke away, he trembled against Bran, and he _moaned_, right in Bran's ear, and somehow that was enough, and Bran let out his own muffled gasp as he bucked against Will, trapped between the wall and him, and his vision burned, and then slowly returned.

He was gripping Will to him, leaning against the wall, and Will's hands were bunched in Bran's shirt, and Bran slowly looked up at him, at the same time as Will looked down at him. They were both breathing hard.

"I just-" Will said, looking shell-shocked. "Did you?"

"Yeah," Bran said softly, surprised his mouth even worked any more. He smiled, weakly. "Guess we'd both wanted to do that for a long time, love."

"You can say that again," Will said, joking in between low ragged breaths that still shook his body.

"_Love_," Bran whispered, and Will made another sound in his throat, and that led to another bout of kissing, and might have led to all sorts of shenanigans out in the open, but somehow led to them sinking to the floor, arms around each other, just kissing and kissing, and it was perfect.

After another length of time, Will pulled away slightly, and with a curious note in his voice said, "_How_ long have you wanted to do this?"

Bran made a groan of disappointment, annoyed that the kissing had stopped. "Bloody ages," he said, and leaned in to start the kissing again, an action with which Will looked happy to oblige, except Will still looked curious. Bran sighed. "What are the chances of us getting back to the good stuff without you getting an answer?"

Will pulled a face and quoted _Clueless_, just to get Bran's goat. "Slim to none."

Bran rolled his eyes. "How did I know you were going to say that? Besides, this is a less _Clueless_ moment, more _Pride and Prejudice_. I'm getting a serious Colin Firth flashback…"

"…how did I not figure out you were gay too?" Will said, a serious look on his face but a twinkle in his eyes. Bran poked him in the shoulder, not hard enough to leave a mark, and didn't answer Will directly.

"When the love declarations been and gone, and Elizabeth's in a playful mood, asking when Darcy first fell in _lurve_ with her," Bran said. "So in this case, you're the girl."

"Maybe we can take it in turns," Will said, lazily tracing Bran's wrist with a finger. "So?"

"Oh… I was in the middle of lusting after you before I realised it had begun," Bran said, airily. Will sighed. "Baby, I've been waiting for you all my life?" Will shook his head. Bran mimicked the gesture, fondly. "Probably since that time at the Fresher's Fair," Bran admitted.

Will frowned, in confusion.

"When you were signing up for the Juggling Club, which, may I remind you, you never attended," Bran said.

"Was on at the same time as the film club," Will interrupted. "And no one gets between me and Tarantino. You should know that more than anyone."

Bran flickered an easy two-fingered gesture at Will, and then remembered what he was talking about. "And you bent over the table and waggled your lovely behind in my face." Bran flushed a little, but decided the time to be embarrassment had… _ahem_… come and gone. "I nearly quite cleanly forgot it was _your_ behind I was ogling until you stood up."

Of course, Bran had also chalked down his reaction to Will bending over as being over-heated and stressed from all the people milling around and thrusting leaflets into his face. Anyone was bound to be overwhelmed. He'd always realised he was probably gay, because no woman other than the Leanne chick on Coronation Street had ever made him have the hot and sweaty kind of dreams that random guys in uni and on the streets had. Will was right – he _was_ Alicia Silverstone in _Clueless_ – because he hadn't realised he was in love with Will, and it was – in hindsight – so _obvious_. The way he hadn't dated anyone, although he'd had more than one offer since starting uni. He'd told himself at the time that it was because of his insecurity over his appearance, and that people asking him out because he was different, because of his looks, was much too shallow for him.

Also in hindsight, Bran was wondering in bafflement how he'd translated his jealousy over those small huddles that Will and Jane managed to find themselves in a lot, discussing Jane's problems or latest date gone wrong. And in a sudden embarrassing memory, Bran remembered breaking his heater in his room in a fit of pique when Will had gone on a study date with the fair blonde Tabitha Williamson. He vaguely recalled putting it down to exam stress, when Jane came in to find out what all the noise had been about, and he definitely recalled the embarrassed flush that inhabited his cheeks when he found out it really was just a _study_ date, because Tabitha was married to one of the Media lecturers. Tabitha must have known Will was gay before Bran did, because Tabitha's husband was notoriously possessive over her, or so the rumours said, and Bran thought he would have heard if he'd beaten Will up.

"Ah," Will said, sounding a little strangled, and twisted his head a little to look at his rear. "Really?" He twisted back to Bran, and, quite deliberately, leered at him.

"How about you?" Bran said, leaning in closer, enjoying the way Will's face minutely changed the closer he got.

"Hm? Oh." Will coloured, and fidgeted.

"Will," Bran said, his voice low, in warning. He pulled back slightly, showing Will that he was clearly capable of denying Will contact if Will refused to answer, and Bran was moved by the whimper in Will's throat, as if Bran moving away was a bad thing, too horrid to contemplate.

"You know when I came to see you, before I… before the letters dwindled…" Will looked away for a moment, and then looked up to meet Bran's gaze.

"Since then?" Bran's voice ghosted over the words. "You were sixteen. And I- I was so hurt when the letters stopped coming so much… You used to write to me _weekly_, and then _nothing_…" Bran tried to keep the pain out of his voice, but he had been absolutely devastated for those two years. Every day, waking up at eight, and wishing for the thud of the post…

"One morning, at breakfast, we went for the same piece of fruit," Will said, his eyes distant, remembering. "And it was just your thumb that touched me, but it burned…" His eyes fluttered shut for a moment, and then opened, looking into the distance. "And somehow I just knew I loved you, and that it wasn't going to go away."

"That's when you stopped wearing colours," Bran said, his voice low. "Wasn't it?"

Will looked back at Bran. "Because it felt like I was betraying you enough already to be lying to you with every letter, every visit, and then to…" Will's voice hitched. "To be there, and to not tell you how I felt…" Will trailed off, and swallowed. "I'm sorry, I know it was selfish, but it hurt, and I was confused…" He smiled tightly, irony almost tangible on his face. "I wore black to mourn the loss of my innocence," Will said, looking directly at Bran. "I think I've been in love with you since the first day I saw you. Just was in denial for it a long time."

Will's voice was bitter, burning, and Bran shook his head with the intensity of it. Instead, he leant forwards and grabbed both of Will's hands with his own.

"You were mourning _me_…" Bran's voice ghosted into nothing.

"You have to understand," Will said, his voice light. "I'm going to live forever. Forever. I won't age for a good few centuries."

"So you'll be my boy toy in the future," Bran said, his voice low and urgent. "I've always wanted to seem like a sugar daddy."

Will still looked a little withdrawn.

"God, Will, I think I've been in love with you that long too," Bran said, trying to keep his voice at a steady pace so Will would take him seriously. Will looked at him, curious but still distant. "Those two years, when your regular letters stopped… Every day I waited for them. Every day, whenever I heard the post come, I would hurtle downstairs, and stare at the doormat, and when I'd see nothing but typed addresses, typed demands for money, my heart broke every single day. And then I'd declare I didn't need you, I didn't need your stupid letters, but then a few weeks later, or a couple of months on, then your familiar tiny writing would land on the doormat, and I'd read it and not _breathe_ 'til I finished, and… Those two years passed in a blur, because I wasted them waiting for your letters. Waiting for you. And-"

"And?"

Bran struggled with the words, as he struggled to put that long period of constant disappointment into understandable phrases. He regretted not using some of his spare time inhaling the dictionary. "And that only had to be because I was in love with you. Don't you see? I've probably been waiting for you forever, I just needed someone to translate it for me… Why else do you _think_ I even came to the same uni as you? The same course? I'm not naturally inclined to anthropology. The closest I come to human study is studying _you_."

"But I'm not human-"

"No buts!" Bran said, his voice fiercely. He tugged Will closer, and Will fell into him, having to grab the front of Bran's t-shirt to stop him crashing into Bran and making them horizontal. This was a good enough aim for Bran, but would distract him from dissuading Will from running away, so Bran forced himself to pay attention. "Do you love me?"

"I-"

"_Do you love me?_"

"Yes," Will said, his voice fierce. "_Yes_."

"Then love me," Bran said, simply.

Will searched Bran's face wordlessly for a moment, his eyes raking Bran's face, before tugging Bran closer and kissing him, brutally, possessively. Bran didn't take offence at the almost vicious kiss, and was kissing him back just as wildly, and they both knew this was less about lust and want and love, but more of a pact – Bran and Will against the universe. Against time. In that second, they could have destroyed the universe, or melted into it, and Bran made a guttural sound, deep in his throat, and things could have once again progressed much further, or at least Bran thought so from the sudden feral look deep in Will's eyes, except they were interrupted.

"Guys, have you stopped fighting yet?" Jane's voice rang out stridently from the front door, cutting through the rather nice haze that Bran was enjoying. "Paul and Robin have cooked something. I don't know what it is, but it doesn't smell too bad."

"Yeah, we're coming," Bran said, struggling to find his voice as he got to his feet, pulling Will up with him as Will semi-smiled at Bran's words. Bran brushed himself down as he heard Jane's footsteps get closer, and tried to push his hair down, so it wouldn't be so big a clue as to what he and Will had been doing.

Their mouths, bruised and chapped, might still give it away. Bran hoped the food might be able to disguise his own mouth before anyone looked at him too closely and jumped to a (probably right) conclusion.

"It's not got wasabi in, does it?" Will said as Jane turned the corner. Will had stuck in his hands in his pockets, and looked as innocent as a choir boy. Bran shuffled, feeling guilty, wishing he had Will's composure.

"It may do," Jane said, wrinkling her nose. She stopped, and looked at them, her eyes narrowing. Bran fought the flush to try and stop it rising up his neck to his cheeks again. She looked lingeringly at Bran's hair, and at his slightly askew t-shirt, and frowned. _Uh, oh._ "Have you two been-" Bran took a deep breath, waiting for the word. "-_fighting_?"

"In a manner of speaking," Will managed, with a still face. He looked back at Bran, and when his face was significantly turned far enough way from Jane, he flashed a smile and wink at Bran.

"We promise not to any more," Bran said. "It's all worked out."

"All right," Jane said. "As long as you promise."

"We promise," Will said.

"Hang on," Jane said, coming to a pause near the front of the door. "It's _all_ worked out?" She looked at them shrewdly. Bran bit his lip and looked at Will, who was still looking innocent.

"I remember the previous Loop too, when you restored our memories," Jane said, frowning. "So…?"

Will blushed. "It's _all_ worked out." He reached out for Bran's hand, and Bran took it, and squeezed it, and grinned at Jane, who was shaking her head.

"You two make quite a cute couple," Jane said.

"Only quite?" Bran said, feeling a little of his old comforting arrogance come back to his tone.

"Come on, you handsome couple you," Jane said, with a roll of her eyes. "Let's go and play Roulette with Paul and Robin's 'cooking'."

* * *

It was about the sixth dizzy smile over the dining table that Bran flung at Will that caused Paul to explode. 

"Jesus Christ already, will you two do us all a favour and go upstairs and shag and spare us the soppy grins?"

Bran choked, while Will had the decency to flush a deep crimson.

Paul frowned, and then his expression fell away in surprise. "You _haven't_," he said, in a low voice, to a suddenly silent table.

Bran gulped down some water, while Will shrugged, still blushing, at Paul.

"You were only outside ten minutes!" Paul said, sounding stunned.

"I'm Welsh," Bran said, grinning that he'd found his voice quicker than Will. "Spending all our time in the hills makes us act silly over sex when it's not with sheep."

Barney burst out laughing. Jane shot him an exasperated look, but was grinning too widely to have the desired effect.

"Actually, though," Bran said, sounding aggrieved. "Us Welshmen like to take a long time over things, especially sex. So it must be a Stanton thing."

"We're impressed by speed," Stephen said, with a grin.

"You were as quick as me," Will said. And then flushed, and dropped his face to the table, hiding his face in the tablecloth as he groaned in mortification. "I'm never going to live this down, am I?"

"Nope," Jane said, surprisingly cheery.

They ate the rest of their dinner with raucous teasing and dirty comments directed at Will, especially when he finished his dinner first, so they mocked him again about speed.

"I think it's time for bed, now," Jane said, after they'd chatted late into the night, and Barney had yawned for the hundredth time. Bran felt his face flush again. "And you two-" She pointed at them accusingly. "Are going to have separate beds this time."

Bran opened his mouth to protest that he was tired, and they wouldn't be _up_ to anything, but Stephen grimly said, "Seconded!" and Bran found he was too tired to disagree.

* * *

By morning, Bran wished he had disagreed. He hadn't been able to sleep well, and at one point had got up to creep up the stairs to Will's room, but somehow Stephen was up and about, as if knowing what Bran had in mind. 

Bran had to shuffle down to the kitchen under the excuse of a glass of water, and had stayed downstairs all night, over heated and just somehow, even in the dire circumstances, overwhelmingly, blisteringly happy. Some things didn't add up, but Bran found that he didn't really care.

He was in love and by God, he had been for such a long time.

Explaining things to Will had helped Bran explain things to himself, and finally, things were starting to make sense, and it was a sensation that Bran was willing to fight tooth and nail for to keep hold of.

He was able to grab Will for a nice good morning grope, in Will's bedroom, where Bran had _accidentally_ left his clothes, and they both emerged, still looking presentable, and both wearing bright colours, Bran immeasurably chuffed that he was the reason that Will was no longer in mourning.

In fact, Will had been in a chirpy mood all day. _What a difference love makes_…

It was only now, as the hour approached for the Dark to come rise again, that nerves were rising, and no one could stand in one place for long as they huddled in the barn, exchanging jumpy looks and nervous sighs.

Bran sat, and watched Will as he drew some sort of chalk circle on the ground, with some fancy symbols. Will had distractedly explained that it was to give the Vortex the right energy. If everyone stood at the points he dictated, then a nexus would form between them. And if worst came to worse, and he had to use the rest of the dust for them to reset time again, then the nexus would link them, meaning they didn't even have to be physically linked any more.

Bran had accepted that explanation at first, but now it was nearing the appropriate time, he was staring at the diagram. The squiggled symbols seemed to make no sense. Even if they were the visual representations of the almost Latin almost Welsh language that Will could speak, shouldn't some of the symbols be the same? And why were the places for them to stand quite close together, with one a distance away?

He opened his mouth to call Will over, and demand an explanation, but Will was somehow already there, at his elbow. _He must have wandered over while I was staring at the circle…_

Will handed him a canteen of water. "You looked thirsty," he said.

Bran took the water, and drank a mouthful, and then Will quickly took the bottle and a swig of it himself. "Indirect kiss," Bran said, with a grin. He leant in and grabbed a direct kiss, just mouth to mouth, lingering for a moment, enjoying the friction.

"Hand me Eirias," Will said, almost distracted when the kiss finished, his hand out. Bran automatically handed the sword over, despite the pang of something being missing when the weight was lifted from his hip. "I'll have to put it directly into the void to make sure it gets there."

Bran nodded. "Won't that be dangerous? What if you slipped into the void with it?" His voice fell as he realised the implication of what could go wrong with everything.

Will shrugged. "Hopefully, with the object of power with them, the Old Ones would move on." He paused, looking at the circle with narrowed eyes. "And hopefully, humanity won't suffer too much without a Watchman. My family, though…" He trailed off, and then grinned, ruefully. "I suppose with the full circle of Old Ones, even beyond time, we could conduct a spell to remove myself from everyone's memories."

"You promised not to make me forget again," Bran said, a teasing smile on his face that faltered at the look that flashed across Will's face. Something in Bran's stomach lurched. "And an Old One's promise is binding…"

"I promised never to make you forget," Will said, his voice suddenly disconnected, but still heavy with longing. He turned, and touched Bran on the cheek, and Bran got a sinking feeling that everything was starting to go wrong. "The removal of an Old One from the timeline causes ripples… Slowly, everyone begins to forget them, and a person rewrites the memories themselves, without help, to stop their brain from imploding. It's sort of a safety catch the human brain employs in the wake of magic, to stop insanity. I wouldn't make you forget, but if I disappeared in that way, your own mind would rewrite the memories of us together. I'd just be a faceless kid on a nameless hillside. Or… I could use the Dust and go on my own, before you ever remembered, and then I'd have nothing to make you forget."

Bran stared in mounting horror. Will's words were so cold…

"Relax," Will said, the tense moment gone as he grinned, and leaned in, and stole another kiss. Bran was too stunned to return it properly. "It's not going to be necessary. You think I'm going to fall in and leave _you_ behind? I mean, it's the right thing to do, but…" He dragged a thumb over the back of Bran's hand. "…I'm tired of doing the right thing. I love you. I want you. I'm not going to screw that up in a moment of clumsiness."

Bran grinned. "You'd better not."

Will smiled at him in return. "All right, people, places!"

Subdued but pacified, Bran took his spot directly opposite Will on the circle. Stephen, Paul and Robin stood to Bran's left, and Jane and Barney to the right. Will took a deep breath, and flexed his shoulders, bringing out the pouch of the Dust of Time.

The air sang, faintly. "They're coming," Will said, softly, as if almost to himself.

He looked over to the others, and Bran smiled at him.

And then the smile faded.

Will was crying.

Suddenly, silently, through such a sad smile that Bran's heart leapt at the sight of it.

"I'm sorry," Will said.

Bran frowned, the meaning not quite sinking in.

With a roar almost like a thunder, but worst, the whole barn was plunged into sudden darkness.

When the lights flickered back on, Bran paid no attention to the men in black hooded robes lining the hall, or their booming words that were the same every time. His attention was on Will.

The confused teenager, with his soft declaration of love, and dizzying kisses, and sad smile, had gone. In his place, it was still Will, but this was _Old_ Will. He was tall, taller than Bran remembered him being, and curiously, his height hadn't changed at all. Will's eyes were blazing, not literally, but with a deep furiousness that made the air crackle.

With a grim, determined look, Will took one long, last look at Bran, with his eyes shining, and reached into the pouch. He pulled out a handful of dust. A blast from the Dark made Will drop the rest of the pouch, but it didn't stop Will from putting his hand out, and spinning the dust out. A small vortex of the dust appeared before Will, and he leapt into it, Eirias on his hip.

Bran cried out, and ran forward, breaking the circle, and almost made it to the vortex, but it disappeared just as he got there.

"NO!" His fingers closed on empty air. Will was gone.

With a look of despair, Bran turned, to look at the others. They were in various states of shock.

"The Dust of _Time_?" Mitohin said, his loud voice grating into the silence Bran's yell of despair had left behind. He grit his teeth.

Bran turned to him, feeling brash and reckless. "We've used it before," he said. "You won't win."

"Not unless you give us another chance to try." Mitohin grinned. "Use the Dust, if you will, and let us follow him."

"That's possible?" Jane broke in, before Bran had a chance to tell Mitohin to go to hell.

"Inevitable," Mitohin said sadly, his dark eyes travelling between them all. "But too late for me. This reality won't last long, and you'll all fade away." His eyes then travelled to the circle on the ground. "In his haste to keep you far enough away from the vortex, he might have given you a chance."

Bran frowned, in confusion, but Mitohin merely saluted, and that's when Bran noticed the wind tugging at Mitohin's robes, fraying them, and pulling the fragments away. Bran's mouth opened, as Mitohin, and the rest of the Dark, span away into fragments.

And to his horror, the hall around them began to break up in the same way, like paper, the fragments fluttering away. Will's chalk circle seemed to be saving them, except… it was coming in, smaller and smaller, and Bran knew it wouldn't be long until they were swept away too. Bran was angry then, angry that Will had killed them this way, but in a curious way he also knew what had happened – Will had used the Dust to loop back slightly earlier, where they would exist without their returned memories, and he wouldn't have to make Bran remember… and then he could even erase himself from their lives without much trouble at all… A faked death… Or the removal of the fact he'd ever been part of their lives…

Bran knew with sudden clarity that this was Will's plan. He beckoned the others over, and they huddled in the centre as Bran retrieved the pouch of Dust that Will had dropped.

"If this works," Bran said to them roughly, "then we're going to have to pretend it's the first time. It's going to be tough, but we have to."

"What's going on," Jane said, her eyes searching Bran's face, her own face creased in worry. "What's he trying to do?"

Bran looked at the empty space where Will had stood, and then at the encroaching Dark. Perhaps this was what happened when the Dark won... "He said something about _forgetting_, about making us all forget. But he could have done it any time, instead he reset time…"

"He's going to have one last day." Stephen's voice was rough, like he'd been kicked in the guts. "He's going to have one last, perfect day and then erase himself from our minds."

There was silence for a moment.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Paul demanded, angrily. "Let's go to him, and tell him it's not going to work-"

"We can't." Bran's voice was soft, disappointed.

Paul stepped forward, bodily, into Bran's personal space, breathing hard as he looked down at him. "What do you mean we _can't_. We'll be obliterated if we stay. And it's _Will_. Don't you get how important he is?"

"Of course I bloody do!" Bran said, snapping the words out, an almost regal note to his tone that they all paid attention to. And then his voice softened, to one of affection and desperation intertwined, as he admitted the truth. "I'm in love with him."

"Oh." It seemed to flummox Paul, but only for a second. "I see. Well, we all have the same motivation, then. We all love him, and don't want to forget him. So we have to go back."

"Agreed," Bran said, simply.

Paul frowned. "But you said-"

"I said we couldn't go back and tell him," Bran said, slowly. "Because he'll just duck out on us and use the sand again and make _sure_ there's none left, and then we'll never have a chance." He looked at them all, his expression grim. "We have to go back and pretend it's the very first time again. We have to say exactly what we said during the first time, act the same way, and react the same way, until he does whatever he needs to. And we'll stop him."

Bran left a moment pause before lifting himself even taller, raising his chin up. "Who's with me?"

No one even hesitated to nod. Bran nodded back, and lifted dust out of the pouch. Then he joined the others as they linked hands. Bran took a deep breath, looked at them all, and their determined faces, and then let the dust fly from his fingers.

There was a blaze of light, and Bran tried to shield his face, but Stephen was holding his hand in a tight grasp, and then they were falling, and then- and then – and then-

Bran blinked furiously, trying to get his sight back. The bright light was everywhere. But it was colder. And suddenly no one was holding his hand any more.

Bran blinked even more, and his vision slowly cleared in time to see Will's mother shuffling off to pretend to feed the chickens.

He turned back to the others, scattered amongst the Stantons who had not dealt with Will's secret well. Their faces were littered with smiles. The ones who had come through time were frowning, resolute, eyes shining with determination, sharing small, secret smiles and nods.

Bran shifted closer to Stephen, and touched his elbow quietly. "Now," he said, to Stephen. Stephen looked at Bran with a hint of worry, and then watched as Mary moved closer to the door.

The door opened. Will stood there, staring at them all, and then he stared at Mary for a long second, and then he threw his arms around his sister's neck abruptly. "_Mary!_" Pulling back, he regarded the sister closest to him in age with a fond, if goofy, smile, and his sister put one icy cold hand out; ruffling his hair good-naturedly. "I thought you weren't due home until the twenty-third!"

"Yeah, that's what we wanted you to think."

Bran watched as Will stared open-mouthed at Mary. Mary then stood aside to let Will see the crowd of people assembled in front of the house. Will's mouth dropped open, and he was speechless.

Stephen brushed past Bran, and for a second, Bran was worried, until Stephen said, in a deep voice. "Hey, kid." His formal accent was tinged with humour. Will smiled and stared happily at his older brother, but this time it was different. There was such open sadness on Will's face.

"What -- I mean how --" Will said, and gaped even more when James and Max stood aside to reveal Will's father holding onto a large bag of luggage, and four more familiar figures stood, shivering, behind his brothers and sisters.

From the back of the group, Bran looked up at Will, knowing Will spotted him last.

"Hi Will," Bran greeted, a grin on his face as he trembled from the cold. Beside him stood Jane, and her two brothers.

"Aren't you going to let us in?" Barbara whined, looking like she was turning blue. Bran was glad that not all of them knew the time was looping – they could take their cues from the Stantons who genuinely believed this was the first time around.

"Naw, he's forgotten all his manners," Max broke in, rolling his eyes at his youngest brother's speechlessness.

The familiar sound of an insult from his brother made Will's body kick in, and he stood aside to let them all pile in. Bran faintly noticed in the corner of his eye that Will's mother had stopped the pretence of feeding the chickens and had wandered over to come inside too.

Stephen was the last to pile into the small Stanton household, and grabbed Will by the elbow to grab him in a crushing hug of welcome. "Happy birthday, Will," said Stephen. Will stared at Stephen, thunderstruck, then at his parents, and at all the people crowded in the small kitchen and living room.

"This is --" Will grinned fiercely. "This is the best birthday present _ever_!"

"Is to make up for that poxy eighteenth birthday you had," James explained, his round face amiable. "Can't have been much fun with only you, mum, dad and a whole load of poxy chickens."

"Hey," Alice Stanton protested, shrugging off the overly-large overcoat and hanging it on a peg by the door. "Anyway, Will, this took quite a bit of organisation, but you'd better get on in and greet your friends properly, as your brothers and sisters will all be here till New Year, but Bran and the Drews can only stay till the twenty-third."

Will pushed past Max, Barbara and Paul, all looking almost as if they'd never left, and dived into the living room. Jane was standing with Simon and Barney, looking gently around their house with a tentative smile, and looking apologetic. She moved over to Will as he appeared in the doorway, and indicated Barney and Simon with a toss of her head.

"Sorry, _this _was the only way I could come, and I didn't want to miss your nineteenth," Jane said. Will grinned at her, then shot a grin at Barney and Simon. Bran was glad Jane had remembered what she originally said. It was imperative they all acted exactly as they had done, or Will would suspect they remembered. Until Will changed how he'd reacted, they couldn't change one word.

Bran snuck around to the window seat, as Will said, "No problem. Besides, this'll be just like old times, right?"

"I'm feeling a little neglected over here," Bran said, grinning as Will turned to him.

"Bran!" Will stepped forwards with a grin, and a curious glance at Jane, who was hiding her face behind her hand and giggling.

"What?" Bran pretended to look a little concerned. "What's wrong?"

"That's my seat," Will said flatly, trying to sound stern.

"Ah." Bran relaxed, folding his arms and dropping his rucksack to the floor. Bran caught Will's happy glance and suddenly reached forwards to pull Will's abandoned glass of orange juice off the mantelpiece, taking a defiant sip of the juice. "I guess this is your drink too."

Will nodded slowly, and Bran impudently grinned at him before placing the glass back on the mantelpiece. Getting to his feet, Bran crossed over to where Will stood and grabbed his friend in a hug. Will hugged Bran back, and grinned into the face of his friend, while Bran struggled to not remember too well that a day ago, this hug would have been a _lot_ more than just a hug…

Will pulled away from Bran to look at Mary.

Looking around at Will and his brothers, sisters, and friends, Bran felt a warm shiver of the faint hope that this as going to work. That they could stop Will before he erased himself from their memories.

Bran found himself staring as Will looked at his parents happy gazes so fondly. Will looked so _happy_, and was looking at everyone so lingeringly that Bran knew he was right. Will wasn't intending to repeat the day again.

Will's father smiled at Will.

"Happy birthday, Will," his father said, indicating his sons and daughters with a spread of his arm. Will grinned.

Bran smiled, too, and in the corner of his eye, noticed the others were adopting his cheery disposition. _Smile away, Old One_, Bran thought, coolly. A feral grin crossed his face at the memory of Will's explanation of how he loved Bran, had loved Bran for forever. _And ever. Love on, Will Stanton, I will requite thee. _Will flickered a glance at Bran, and Bran almost thought Will had somehow heard his thoughts, but Bran just smiled, and got a smile in return. Will turned away again, to chat to one of his sisters, and Bran sighed in relief, and in determination. _I will requite thee,_ Bran vowed, his eyes lingering on Will. _And bloody well keep thee afterwards, too.

* * *

_

**To be continued…**


End file.
